Twelve tips for promoting significant event analysis to enhance reflection in undergraduate medical students

The facilitation of reflection and development of reflective abilities are increasingly considered to be an important component of professional development (Eraut, 1994). It is known that students find the process of reflection difficult and that it does not come naturally to all, requiring a safe trusting environment in which students can develop with staff support (Woodward, 1998). The structured and deliberate review of significant events has been advocated as a useful way to encourage reflection (Brookfield, 1990). These tips are based on recent research, which revealed that students' difficulties with significant event analysis arise from a range of unforeseen emotional reactions or conflicts. We pass on our tips for minimizing these conflicts and enhancing the reflective and creative aspects of significant event analysis.     

Twelve tips for developing palliative care teaching in an undergraduate curriculum for medical students

Abstract

Palliative care is the holistic care of patients with advanced, progressive incurable illness. Palliative care is well recognized as an essential component of medical student curricula. However, teaching is variable within medical schools. Using current literature, these tips aim to highlight key points necessary to facilitate the development and delivery of palliative care teaching to medical students. The key practice points include: clinical exposure to patients with palliative care needs and those that are dying, being compulsory (and integrated) across the course, summative and formative assessments to encourage learning, support from within the university for curricular time and development, visits to a hospice/inpatient palliative care facility, emphasis on clinically based learning later in the course, teaching by specialists in palliative care as well as specialists in other areas including Family Doctors/General Practitioners, innovative teaching methods and inter-professional learning to develop teaching.     

Educating undergraduate medical students about patient safety: priority areas for curriculum development

Learning about patient safety is an important aspect of undergraduate medical curricula but there are no clear priority areas. A recent consensus of international medical educators identified several priority areas and these recommendations include approaches to increase knowledge of patient safety, including the causes and frequency, to develop willingness to take responsibility, to develop self awareness of the situations when patient safety is compromised, to develop communication skills, especially inter-personal, and to develop team working skills.     

Comparison of recommended sanctions for lapses in professionalism of undergraduate medical students in a Saudi Arabian and a Scottish medical school

Background: Medical Professionalism is recognized as a cultural construct. We explore perceptions of the severity of lapses in professionalism of undergraduate medical students at two medical schools with different cultural contexts.

Methods: Respondents from two medical schools (Saudi Arabia & UK) recommended sanctions for the first time, unmitigated lapses in academic professionalism, using the Dundee Polyprofessionalism Inventory 1: Academic Integrity.

Results: While more than two-thirds of the recommended sanctions for the 30 items of poor professionalism were fully or nearly congruent among the 1125 respondents, there were substantial differences in recommended response for one-third of the items, with a strong tendency for the Saudi students to recommend more lenient sanctions than the Scottish students.

Conclusion: The strategy of using recommended sanctions as a proxy for the perception of the severity of different lapses in professionalism may be a useful tool in learning and teaching academic professionalism among medical students in different cultural contexts.     

International infectious diseases teaching to undergraduate medical students: A successful European collaborative experience*

Context: The emerging global-health paradigm requires medical teaching to be continuously redefined and updated; to this end, transnational approaches should be encouraged and medical training harmonized. Infectious diseases (ID) teaching in the current context of emerging infections, fast-increasing bacterial resistance and large-scale human migration, was chosen to develop a common international course.

Objective: We report the successful implementation of a joint European undergraduate course aiming to (i) develop a common ID core curriculum among European medical schools; (ii) promote mobility among teachers and students (iii) promote international cooperation among European teachers.

Methods: The course was built around teachers’ mobility. It was delivered in English by a team of European medical educators from Paris Descartes University, Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore in Rome and the University of Edinburgh to groups of 25–30 undergraduate medical students at each university. Partner Institutions officially recognized the course as substitutive of or additive to the regular curriculum.

Results: The course has been running for 3 years and received excellent satisfaction scores by students and staff as regards to scientific content, pedagogy and international exchanges.

Conclusion: This cooperative approach demonstrates the feasibility of a harmonized European undergraduate medical education, having ID as a test experiment for future developments.