Measuring educational workload: a pilot study of paper-based and PDA tools

Paediatric trainee supervision: management changes and perceived education value

AIM

Supervision in postgraduate training is an under-researched area. We measured the amount, type and effect of supervision on patient care and perceived education value in a general paediatric service.

METHOD

We designed a structured observation form and questionnaire to document the type, duration and effect of supervision on patient management and perceived education value.

RESULTS

Most supervision occurred without the paediatrician confirming the trainee's findings. Direct observation of the trainee was rare. Management was changed in 30% of patients seen on the inpatient ward round and in 42% of the patients discussed during the chart reviews but not seen by the paediatrician. Management was changed in 48% of the cases when the paediatrician saw the patient with the trainee in outpatients but in only 21% of patients when the patient was but not seen. Changes made to patient management, understanding and perceived education value, differed between inpatient and out patient settings. There was more impact when the paediatrician saw the patient with the trainee in outpatients; while for inpatients, the opposite was true. Trainees rated the value of the supervision more highly than their supervisors did. Trainees' comments on what they learnt from their supervisor related almost exclusively to clinical knowledge rather than professional behaviours.

CONCLUSIONS

We observed little evidence of supervisors directly observing trainees and trainees learning professional behaviours. A review of supervisory practices to promote more effective learning is needed. Communicating to paediatricians the value their trainees place on their input could have a positive effect on their engagement in supervision.

Measures of educational effort: what is essential to clinical faculty?

PURPOSE

To enhance the recognition of educational effort and thereby support faculty vitality, the authors aimed to identify essential categories of educational effort from the perspective of clinical faculty and determine whether the emerging categories were in concordance with an organizational perspective.

METHOD

The authors performed nominal group processes in four groups in 2008, with the participation of 24 clinical faculty members, 6 in each group, representing 18 (medical, surgical, paraclinical, and psychiatric) specialties at 14 hospitals in Denmark. Subsequently, the authors performed a comparative analysis of the emerging essential categories and the organizational work by the national panel on medical education, appointed by the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC).

RESULTS

The four groups of clinical faculty members agreed on categories of educational effort. This quantitative consistency in prioritization was supported by qualitative consistency, as the authors observed similar uses of words and phrases among all four groups. The top priority in essential categories of educational effort was "Visibility of planned educational activities on the work schedule," which received 39% of all votes. The comparative analysis showed that the essential categories of educational effort suggested by clinical faculty were in concordance with the steps developed by the AAMC.

CONCLUSIONS

The high degree of consistency among clinical faculty from different locations and specialties and the high concordance with the organizational work of the AAMC suggest that it is possible to develop standardized measurements of educational effort. Clinical faculty emphasized that a good starting point for educational measurements is the work schedule.

Lost in translation: the challenges of global communication in medical education publishing

CONTEXT

An academic journal serves its purpose by being read and understood. International medical education journals that want to reach a wider readership must be accessible to a multitude of cultures and contexts. It is therefore important that authors and editors consider how their use of language will be interpreted by health care education colleagues who work in different settings. Given the increasing importance of communicating research findings in health care education, it is surprising that no surveys of the comprehensibility of medical education publications have been published in the medical education literature.

METHODS

We (a group of education researchers from Europe and North America) set out to examine the comprehensibility of a defined set of recently published medical education papers. We surveyed all the articles published in four major international journals on medical education during the first 5 months of 2008 and searched for terminology that might prove obscure or confusing to an international readership.

RESULTS

We found that many of the articles surveyed included terminology, contextual descriptions, acronyms and titles that assumed a shared understanding of setting between authors and readers. We include illustrative examples in the text.

DISCUSSION

Terminological and contextual challenges for international readers are common features of the research publications surveyed. In order that the findings of education research may be more widely disseminated and understood, it is important that authors, referees and editors pay attention to the comprehensibility of the language they use in articles selected for publication.