MSE Articles

As I (Associate Dean, Curriculum Development) was sitting in my office pouring through hundreds of e-mails, a faculty member stopped in to express concerns over the students copying material from the tests. “You’ve got to do something about this!” he exclaimed. I sighed, and casually walked to the rear of the classroom to observe what was going on. Sure, enough, several students had their head buried in the test papers, busily typing away on their computers in what looked very much like: Question stem, response option A, response option B, etc. They were not engaged in any of the discussions going on around them – just typing. I came up behind one student who quickly put a piece of paper over his screen. Hmm, I thought, that seem a bit suspicious. As I neared another student, I reminded the class loudly – “Only key points not the full questions.” The faculty member and I walked out again, and I was reminded that I had talked to the class once before. What was I going to do now, he asked?

ABSTRACT

This is the first time that assessment tests were applied at the San Juan Bautista School of Medicine in the Gross Anatomy course. The results showed that our teaching/learning methodology was adequate, effective in enhancing performance by the students, and helped to analyze their outcomes at the individual course level.

ABSTRACT

Interactive and/or active approaches to learning are known to be associated with better outcomes for the student. Increasingly, lecture recordings can be accessed online and offer irresistible convenience, particularly to students. In Pharmacology, the use of online lecture recordings via Lectopia was designed to provide an adjunct for revision and clarification. The introduction of Lectopia in second year Pharmacology was associated with a marked decrease in lecture attendance and an apparent increase in the failure rate. Therefore, the impact of Lectopia on learning outcomes was examined using an online, voluntary survey. Of the 295 students enrolled during the course of this study, 86% completed the survey. Students were sorted into three groups, depending on whether they usually attended both, one or no lectures per week. Students who reported they usually did not attend any lectures had a significantly lower mark in continuous summative assessments than students who attended both or one lecture per week (p < 0.03). Students who usually used Lectopia instead of attending lectures scored significantly lower marks in continuous summative assessments, exam and the final mark compared with students who did not do so (p < 0.05). The major reasons cited for using Lectopia were revision, clarification, timetable clashes and missed lectures. Interestingly, females performed better than males, provided they usually attended both lectures per week and did not use Lectopia instead of attending lectures. Attendance at lectures appears important for achievement of learning outcomes in second year Pharmacology. The use of online lectures as a replacement for face-to-face lectures may be inappropriate in the biological sciences which require in-depth understanding of mechanistic and fundamental concepts.

Academic health centers are increasingly faced with persistent forces of change. Implementing the change process frequently involves unique skills and strategies by effective leaders willing to transform individuals, organizations and cultures. Many of us in contemporary medical science recognize the importance of influencing change to align both individual and organizational goals. Each of us must… Read more »

As we approach our 12th annual meeting this July, I am delighted by the vitality of IAMSE. This is because of the membership and their energy and involvement in the association. The meeting this year in Salt Lake City will mark a new milestone in our development. This year we will incorporate the former ‘Slice of Life’ group into our fold. This group, in which many IAMSE members were also involved, will bring a strong technology perspective to our family. In addition, the Team Based Learning group will be a part of our IAMSE meeting. The TBL group represents another instructional strategy that fits well within our mission of “…sharing current and innovative means to teach the sciences fundamental to medicine and health”. These new additions to our meeting program are built upon the successful relationship we have had for some years with the Pathology educators, GRIPE. The 2008 Program committee has worked diligently to meld all of these into an engaging and productive gathering. We certainly hope all of you will be with this July. Check out the meeting program for details (www.iamse.org/conf/conf12/index.htm)

Also occurring at the Salt Lake meeting will be the installation of our new board members following the Spring election. We are excited to introduce the new members to the Board: Peter de Jong, Kathryn McMahon, Mathew Gwee, Ferhan Girgin Sagin and William Jeffries. They will join the re-elected members: Veronica Michaelsen, Jack Strandhoy, Peter Anderson, and Bruce Newton as well as the current members: Mark A.W. Andrews, Deborah Barr, Floyd Knoop, Susan Pasquale, Frazier Stevenson and John Szarek, Ph.D. They along with the rest of the Board will provide our leadership for the coming years. The new officers will be elected from the Board at the meeting in July. Deserving special thanks go to the ‘retiring’ Board members Sheila W. Chauvin, Jerome Rotgans and Giulia A. Bonaminio, our Past president.

In addition to the changes in the Board and officer selection process, the meeting this July will bring my term as President to an end. As I look at where IAMSE is today, I am filled with pride. We have seen an energy and enthusiasm in our membership through activities and projects of the committees that bodes very well for our future. We have been invited to participate and contribute with a number of other medical education groups, including: AMEE, AAMC, AACOM, CGEA and The Generalists in Medical Education. These collaborations have fostered interactions with other groups as well, such as the Alliance of Clinical Educators. Our project, Flexner Revisited, examining the role and value of the basic sciences in medical education, has increased our credibility and visibility tremendously. We have developed a long relationship with our sister organization, AMEE, and through that have established a presence in Europe. The Essential Skills for Medical Educators (ESME) program, which we offer as part of our annual meeting, is testimony to this collaboration. Building on this international theme, we are well on our way to what looks to be a very exciting IAMSE meeting in Leiden, The Netherlands, in 2009. I addition to a European perspective, we have developed relationships and a presence, again through our active members, in the Middle East and Asia.

Our committee structure has served us well as a vehicle for member involvement. Through their activities, we have developed a collaboration to promote and develop new features for the HEAL resources, which will be showcased at the July meeting in Salt Lake City. Our Webcast audio seminar series has continued to be a success. The Membership and Development committees have initiated some important projects that will be of benefit and enjoyable for all. Note that we are going to once again have the ‘silent’ auction at the Annual meeting with the proceeds to be used for travel support for junior faculty. We will have several award recipients to be recognized for their contributions and excellence as medical educators. Our Journal, JIAMSE, has initiated several changes with the publication of supplemental theme issues. Further, the Editorial and Publication committee are continuing their quest for indexing of the Journal.

As you can see, we have accomplished much and are more than meeting our mission of advancing “medical education through faculty development and to ensure that the teaching and learning of medicine continues to be firmly grounded in science”. Most importantly, none of this could occur without the commitment, efforts and energy of all of those who are IAMSE. We have much to be proud of and even more to do.

Thank you for the opportunity to serve as your President for the past two years- it has been a pleasure and an honor. I am looking forward to seeing all of you at the 12th Annual IAMSE meeting in Salt Lake City this July.

It is a great pleasure for me to welcome you to volume 18-1 of the Journal of the International Association of Medical Science Educators. This is another robust volume featuring 2 short communications, and 4 articles, which all advance the knowledge in the broad field of medical education. They also illustrate how you can easily interact with this journal for publication of your unique findings in medical education and pedagogy. I am also very pleased that this issue initiates the Case Studies in Medical Education. We will present typical case scenarios which illustrate common problems in medical education. This will be an interactive part of the Journal. Once you have read the case, and if you have a solution or an opinion, please submit it to me as a Letter to the Editor. It will be peer-reviewed and, if accepted, will be published in the next supplement to the journal and will be part of your educational publication portfolio.

Also, if you have interest in becoming an active participant in our journal author collegium, come to the IAMSE meeting in Salt Lake City in July and take part in the workshop on publishing or the session on publication at this meeting. If you choose to take advantage of these opportunities, make sure you bring a laptop as well as any ideas you wish to turn into publication or papers you have already initiated and want our editorial board to examine at the meeting. See you in Salt Lake.

Uldis N. Streips, Ph.D.
Editor-in-Chief, JIAMSE

ABSTRACT

Growing attention to end-of-life care has fostered innovation in medical education. We describe an effective model to introduce third-year medical students to principles of end-of-life care, and spirituality and faith traditions in the care of the dying. Many aspects of the curriculum are adaptable for use at other medical schools.

ABSTRACT

This study determined efficacy (bellringer exam scores) of three anatomy instructional tools: 2D images, 3D images, and hands on models & prosected specimens (HO). Eighteen undergraduate students participated in this prospective, cross-over controlled, single-blind study. After analysis there was no strong pedagogical evidence to support one instructional tool over another.

At Northern U School of Medicine the faculty has been “asked” to write a higher percentage of exam questions that follow the National Board style where a short clinical vignette is followed by a question with 5 to 10 optional independent answers to chose from. Each question is to have a single correct answer. The… Read more »

The delivery of higher education is going through a paradigm shift whereby the straightforward transmission of information, such as occurs in a lecture, is being reconsidered in favor of learner-centered approaches. A previous IAMSE Webcast Audio Seminar series explored the theory behind such Learner Centered Education (JIAMSE 16(2):48-54. 2006). The importance of a University education… Read more »

ABSTRACT

In 1999, the Indiana University School of Medicine implemented a competency-based curriculum structured around nine core competencies. The students responded to this new curriculum with minimal enthusiasm. We sought to better understand the student perspective in an effort to improve and refine the competency requirements. Accordingly, early in the 2003-2004 academic year, we established four focus groups (6-10 students per group) to systematically analyze student experiences with the competency requirements across four years of medical school. Each of the groups met once to respond to a series of scripted questions about the competencies. Sessions were transcribed and analyzed by three readers using standard protocols for qualitative analysis. Analysis of 525 student comments revealed two major areas of dissatisfaction, as reflected by the frequency: Inconsistent knowledge and use of the competencies by the faculty (39%) and lack of clarity and uniformity in communication about the competencies (26%). Despite these perceived deficiencies, the students generally embraced the important concepts inherent in the nine competencies and recognized their application to the physician role (33%). Sixteen percent of the comments were specific recommendations for improvement, which included competency-specific training for all teachers, clear and consistent communication throughout all four years of the curriculum, and improved methods of feedback and assessment. Many of these recommendations were incorporated into refinements and additions to the competency-based curriculum, which probably contributed to the notable improvement in student acceptance of the competencies measured by end-of-course evaluations. This study has shown that focus groups can provide a rich source of information about student perceptions and attitudes regarding curricular change, and can reveal problems and shortcomings not otherwise apparent. By soliciting student feedback early in the new curriculum, we were able to gather constructive criticisms that led to actionable reforms.

ABSTRACT

We have developed a pedagogic strategy for exposing students to philosophical concepts embedded in the basic medical sciences. The intent of this approach is to stimulate reflection and to cultivate intellectual depth and broadness of outlook. The purpose of the present study was to determine the extent to which these goals are realized.

We asked 202 occupational and physical therapy students and science undergraduates enrolled in a neuroanatomy course to describe, in writing, the impact of addressing philosophical issues on the quality of their educational experience. Thematic content analysis was used to identify specific themes in the 93 responses received.

Fifty nine student responses (63%) were uniformly positive, comprising one or more of the following themes. The inclusion of philosophical material: 1) evoked a nonspecific positive feeling, 2) stimulated reflection, 3) engendered an appreciation of the complexity of reality, and 4) enhanced understanding of the rest of the course material. Twenty six percent of the responses contained one or more of the positive themes, as well as concerns, largely regarding the increase in material to be learned. Eleven percent of the responses were exclusively negative. Our results indicate that periodic exposure to philosophical topics appears to stimulate reflection and provides valuable insight for a significant segment of the class.