According to one hospitalist researcher, physicians and nurses aren't realizing the full potential of whiteboards to improve communications with patients. "
"HealthRock® sets health education to music and song to make health information more memorable, enjoyable, and actionable. Award-winning physician Mache Seibel, MD aka DocRock™ combines up-to-the-second health education with rollicking, catchy music to give kids of all ages the information and inspiration they need to stay healthy, happy, and productive." Check out the music link for a complete list including women's health.
Today's definition of medical professionalism is evolving - from autonomy to accountability, from expert opinion to evidence-based medicine, and from self-interest to teamwork and shared responsibility.
For many, medical professionalism is the "heart and soul of medicine." More than the adherence to a set of medical ethics, it is the daily expression of what originally attracted them to the field of medicine - a desire to help people and to help society as a whole by providing quality health care. But many physicians today experience profound obstacles to fulfilling the ideals of medical professionalism in practice.
Abstract: Drawing from a dialogue between Transformative Learning and NarrativeMedicine, Transformative Medicine seeks to expose detrimental power systems and unchallenged assumptions between physician and patient, indoctrinated through medicaleducation, and advocate dialogue and critical reflection around a patient's storied experience to improve the quality of medical interpretations and intervention.
All kinds of resources, from Twitter applications for physicians to visualizations of various categories of medical research on PubMed. Fantastic blog; do NOT miss it!
"This exercise is a small group discussion about bias for medical students who have had at least some clinical experience, and designed to cultivate awareness that bias is inherent to all humans, including physicians, and can impact patient care. "
Medical Education Online (MEO) is a peer-reviewed international Open Access journal for disseminating information on the education and training of physicians and other health care professionals.
Teaching learners to handle encounters with "difficult" patients is not easy since these encounters may tax the coping resources of even the most skilled or experienced physician.
" Prior to teaching, none of the first year interviewees made an explicit connection between teaching and being a physician. The new instructors selected to teach minimally made a connection and only after prompting. The majority of the experienced instructors did make the connection; however, and did so spontaneously."
"Routine adoption of smartphones by residents appeared to improve efficiency over the use of pagers for physicians, nurses, and allied health professionals. This was balanced by negative communication issues of increased interruptions, a gap in perceived urgency, weakened interprofessional relationships, and unprofessional behavior. Further communication interventions are required that balance efficiency and interruptions while maintaining or even improving interprofessional relationships and professionalism."
"Creating an enabling and nurturing environment prior to and during residency training may be necessary to sustain the motivation to engage in health advocacy. Findings from this study suggest possibilities for a resident-guided participatory curriculum development process around health advocacy. Recommendations for promoting health advocacy in postgraduate training include effective integration of health advocacy in the curriculum by providing protected time and resources, providing experiential learning opportunities and fostering a community of practice for physician health advocates."
"Can compassion and empathy be taught? Can it be taught by older doctors serving as models? Does this mean that older physicians should allow their emotions to show on their faces when they are distressed by a patient's suffering?"
"We are sometimes unconscious of the hidden curriculum, but even when conscious of it we are silent or reluctant to act. We need a frank dialogue with students, residents, and each other about the lived experience of a career in medicine as the struggle it often is; about the challenges of living up to our profession's stated ideals; about the dangers of technological expertise without caring human relationships; about conflicts of interest and the difficult professional challenges of dealing with unprofessional colleagues; and about behaviour that imperils patients. We need to add "Above all be not silent" (Primum non tacere)17 to "First do no harm" as tenets to live by, and we must emphasize to students that what they are like as physicians is just as important as what they know. Thus will we build resistance to the hidden curriculum and reclaim our authenticity as trusted generalists whose knowledge is attached to values we truly uphold, model, and reproduce. "