Publications for the week of August 9th, 2021

2021-08-09

There are several new articles available In Press at the CMEJ.

Major Contributions:

Brief Reports:

Review Papers and Meta-Analyses:

You Should Try This!

Works in Progress:

Read more below:

Major Contributions:

The critical role of direct observation in entrustment decisions by Sibbald et al. compared retrospective and real-time ratings to expected performance ratings for a residency objective structured clinical exam (OSCE) for two years. They observed that while both retrospective and real-time assessments were highly reliable, direct observation improved the validity of entrustment ratings even among senior residents.

In the study, Can we predict failure in licensure exams from medical students’ undergraduate academic performance?, Janeve Desy and co-authors identified academic performance variables that would predict students who are at increased odds of failure on the MCCQE Part I Licensure examination. Their results showed that pre-clerkship GPA was a significant predictor of failure. They hoped that predicting students with increased odds of MCCQE Part I failure would allow for early interventions.

Developing a dashboard for faculty development in competency-based training programs: a design-based research project by Yilmaz et al. identified the needs of faculty members within a Competency Based Medical Education (CBME) system and created a prototype dashboard to meet them. They focused on visualizing faculty assessment data to support faculty development within competency-based programs. They anticipate faculty dashboards will become an important part of CBME programs as institutions advance their use of data.

Review Papers and Meta-Analyses:

Impact of physical therapy and occupational therapy student placements on supervisor productivity: a scoping review by Coleman and co-authors mapped the impact of physical and occupational therapy student placements on the time and productivity of supervisors. The reviewed studies suggested that the supervision of students does not negatively impact productivity despite clinicians perceiving that students slow them down. 

Brief Reports:

Community organization feedback about an undergraduate medical education service learning program by Berrington and team reported on the feedback from community organizations involved with service learning (SL) about their experiences working with undergraduate students. They hope the feedback, such as sharing learning objectives with community partners, will lead to further discussion and improvements for the SL program.

A pre-clerkship simulation-based procedural skills curriculum: decreasing anxiety and improving confidence of procedural skill performance by Battaglia and co-authors evaluated how pre-clerkship procedural skills training affected medical student anxiety and confidence. Their results showed that students who participated in the procedural skills program had decreased anxiety and increased confidence. They maintained that standardizing pre-clerkship procedural skills training within medical school curricula could improve the transition to clerkship.

In their work, Criteria for selection to anesthesia residency programs: a survey of Canadian anesthesia program directors, Niburski and Buu identified desired attributes of anesthesia applications through a survey of anesthesia program directors. Their survey reported that program directors valued candidates with good academic performance and anesthesia elective experience as the most important aspects of the application package.

Development of professionalism vignettes for the continuum of learners within a medical and nursing community of practice by Penelope Smyth and team generated professionalism vignettes based on the pillars of their local code of conduct. They included “gray” vignettes to enhance group discussion and individual reflections. They hoped that creating professionalism vignettes would help educators in teaching professional values through role modeling.

You Should Try This!

Resident-as-teacher to provide multidisciplinary online medical education on Instagram by Liu and Sharma hosted resident-led education sessions on an Instagram account to publish short clinical “pearls” for medical students. Due to cancellations of out-of-province clerkship electives during the COVID-19 pandemic, their innovation allowed residents to practice resident-as-teacher by delivering structured medical education on Instagram.

The Opioid Awareness and Support Team: an innovative example of medical education and community partnership by Downer et al. described a student-led initiative related to education on opioid use disorder through an Opioid Education Day with workshops by community partners. Their initial feedback suggests that medical students can benefit from supplemental learning surrounding opioid use.

In their article, Supported rural pre-medicine: a descriptive evaluation of a novel undergraduate program’s first cohorts,  Sara McEwen and team described a Rural Pre-Medicine program designed to increase the number of students who pursue careers in rural healthcare through several initiatives such as outreach to rural high schools. Their program intends to contribute to reduced rural health disparities.

A structured curriculum and procedure clinic to help family medicine residents diagnose and treat skin cancer by Christine Rivet and co-authors piloted a curriculum for family medicine residents to help identify, diagnose, and manage skin cancers. They found that the residents who participated in the extended educational training improved in diagnosing and managing skin cancers compared to residents who did not receive the training.

Conducting a synchronous virtual multiple mini-interview using Webex for medical school admissions by Domes et al. highlighted the methodology used to run successful synchronous multiple mini interviews (MMI) in Canada during COVID-19. They observed that the advantages of virtual interviewing, such as reduced travel costs, may lead to a broader and more diverse applicant pool.

Stethopedia: an e-learning resource for medical students to supplement Canadian clinical skills education by Mao and team created Stethopedia, an open-access library of clinical skills teaching videos, to help medical students perform clinical skills. Stethopedia was widely used, well-received, and endorsed by McMaster University. They encouraged other medical schools to develop similar resources for their clinical skills curricula. 

Works in Progress:

Examining student perceptions of a COVID-19 service-based learning elective by Button and Cameron described an opportunity to dispense the COVID-19 vaccine across Northern First Nations fly in/remote communities. They will examine the relationship between social accountability and a service-based learning experience.