Mood change and empathy decline persist during three years of internal medicine training.

PURPOSE: To examine longitudinal changes in mood and empathy over the course of the internal medicine residency. METHOD: The authors conducted a cohort study of 61 residents who completed the Profile of Mood States (POMS) and the Interpersonal Reactivity Index (IRI) at six time points during their internal medicine residency at a university-based program. (POMS was administered five times, and IRI was administered six times.) The main outcomes measured were trends in mood disturbances and multiple domains of empathy over the three-year residency, and comparisons to norms. RESULTS: Response rates varied from Time 1 to Time 6 (98%, 72%, 79%, 79%, 94%, and 95%, respectively). Interns had better scores on four POMS subscales: Depression-Dejection (p = .0031), Anger-Hostility (p < .0001), Fatigue-Inertia (p < .0001), and Vigor-Activity (p < .0001) compared with later administrations, especially midinternship. By the end of residency all POMS scores were returning towards baseline (effects sizes in the .20 s), but only depression was no longer significantly different. IRI scores showed the decline in Empathic Concern remained over residency whereas Personal Distress peaked midinternship year but approached baseline at the end of residency. Compared with the general population, the graduating residents were less tense, depressed, and confused. Personal Distress was significantly lower than the norm group. CONCLUSIONS: Internal medicine residency presents challenges resulting in common mood disturbances. Although graduating residents appear to be better off than the population norms, some domains of their mood disturbances and empathy never fully recover from their internship year.     

Assessing the reliability and validity of the mini-clinical evaluation exercise for internal medicine residency training.

PURPOSE: The mini-clinical evaluation exercise, or mini-CEX, assesses residents' history and physical examination skills. To date, no study has assessed the validity of the mini-CEX (mCEX) evaluation format. The authors' objective was to determine the reliability and validity of the mCEX evaluation format. METHOD: Twenty-three first-year residents at Wright-Patterson Medical Center in Dayton, Ohio, were included in the study (academic years 1996-97, 1997-98, and 1998-99). Validity of the instrument was determined by comparing mCEX scores with scores from corresponding sections of a modified version of the standard American Board of Internal Medicine's (ABIM's) monthly evaluation form (MEF) and the American College of Physicians-American Society of Internal Medicine In-Training Examination (ITE). All ABIM MEFs were used without exclusionary criteria, including ABIM MEFs from months where a corresponding mCEX evaluation was not performed. RESULTS: Each resident in the study had an average of seven mCEX evaluations and 12 ABIM MEFs. Of the 168 required mCEX evaluations, 162 were studied. Internal consistency reliability was .90. Statistically significant correlations were found for the following: mCEX history with ABIM history; mCEX physical exam with ABIM physical exam; mCEX clinical judgment with ABIM clinical judgment, medical care, medical knowledge, and the ITE; mCEX humanistic attributes with ABIM humanistic attributes, and mCEX overall clinical competence with ABIM overall clinical competence, medical care, medical knowledge, and the ITE. Analysis of variance comparing sequential mean mCEX scores yielded no significant difference. CONCLUSIONS: This study suggests that the mCEX is a feasible and reliable evaluation tool. The validity of the mCEX is supported by the strong correlations between mCEX scores and corresponding ABIM MEF scores as well as the ITE.     

Using the Federated Council for Internal Medicine curricular guide and administrative codes to assess IM residents' breadth of experience.

PURPOSE: To estimate internal medicine residents' breadth of experience using a published curricular guide and an electronic medical record. METHOD: A cohort of 41 internal medicine residents at Columbia University Medical Center, a large, inner-city, primary and tertiary care center, were followed over their three years of training in the late 1990s. Residents were mapped to the patients they cared for, the diagnoses those patients were assigned, and the Federated Council for Internal Medicine (FCIM) competencies covered. The proportion and distribution of competencies covered (potential to achieve a competency) were measured. RESULTS: Residents covered 76% of priority 1 competencies (those identified by FCIM as optimally learned through direct responsibility for patients) and 67% of all competencies. Although the number of patients cared for was correlated with breadth of experience, the effect was small. Rare diagnoses appear to have been distributed well. CONCLUSION: Internal medicine residents had the potential to achieve the majority of competencies via direct patient care, but no residents achieved full coverage. The electronic medical record may provide a mechanism to track residents and study training programs.     

独立值班考核制度在内科住院医师规范化培训中的应用

目的介绍北京协和医院内科创立的独立值班考核制度,分析该考核制度在住院医师独立值班能力评价和分层中的作用。方法对北京协和医院内科2017年和2018年内科住院医师独立值班考核的结果进行统计,分析不同来源的住院医师在考试次数、通过考试所需时间和通过率方面的分布。结果内科临床医学博士后、专业型临床硕士研究生和北京市基地规培住院医师在通过独立值班考核所需次数方面无差异;内科临床博士后通过考核用时最短,专业型临床硕士研究生次之,北京市规培住院医师用时最长(χ^2=96.27,P<0.05),可以进行初步分层;通过临床带教,大部分住院医师都能在实习6个月内通过独立值班考核,承担独立值班工作。结论在内科住院医师规范化培训中,独立值班考核制度能够客观评价住院医师的值班能力,最大限度的保证临床安全。北京市基地规培住院医师通过考核时间较长,应注意加强临床教学、提高学员能力。     

Applying theory to the design of cultural competency training for medical students: a case study.

Although literature suggests that providing culturally sensitive care promotes positive health outcomes for patients, undergraduate medical education currently does not provide adequate cultural competency training. At most schools, cultural competency, as a formal, integrated, and longitudinal thread within the overall curriculum, is still in its infancy. In this article, the authors summarize the current practice of cultural competency training within medical education and describe the design, implementation, and evaluation of a theoretically based, year-long cultural competency training course for second-year students at Wake Forest University School of Medicine. Evaluation of the results indicate that the course was successful in improving knowledge, attitudes, and skills related to cultural competence as well as bringing about positive changes in the medical school's approach to cultural competency training. Also discussed are the implications of the outcomes for the development of culturally competent physicians and how using appropriate theory can help achieve desired outcomes.     

Using children as simulated patients in communication training for residents and medical students: a pilot program.

Medical schools are charged with the challenge of teaching effective communication skills, a core competency for residents and medical students. Especially challenging is the task of developing effective methods for training residents and students to communicate with children with mental health issues. The authors describe a pilot program at Mercer University School of Medicine that used pediatric standardized patients (SPs), ages 9-19, to aid in training residents and medical students in complex interviewing skills addressing mental health issues. New curriculum components for four pediatric problems, anorexia nervosa, depression, separation anxiety, and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), were designed and implemented by the authors in 2002-04. The training sessions were evaluated by the participating SPs as well as the residents and medical students in training. The components of the training were a lecture and subsequent practice using pediatric SPs and adults acting as their mothers. Evaluation included the qualitative analysis of SPs' reactions to participation in the training as described during a posttraining-session focus-group, as well as questionnaire responses by residents and medical students. The children role-playing the scenario of a difficult-to-manage situation and their adult "parent" actors voiced strongly positive reactions to participating in training residents and medical students. The reactions of physicians in training were also positive. The authors thus conclude that child and adolescent actors can be effectively used as SPs to train residents and students in complex interviewing skills, even in cases involving children with challenging mental health issues.     

Improving bedside teaching: findings from a focus group study of learners.

PURPOSE: Literature reviews indicate that the proportion of clinical educational time devoted to bedside teaching ranges from 8% to 19%. Previous studies regarding this paucity have not adequately examined the perspectives of learners. The authors explored learners' attitudes toward bedside teaching, perceptions of barriers, and strategies to increase its frequency and effectiveness, as well as whether learners' stages of training influenced their perspectives. METHOD: Six focus group discussions with fourth-year medical students and first- or second-year internal medicine residents recruited from the Boston University School of Medicine and Residency Program in Internal Medicine were conducted between June 2004 and February 2005. Each 60- to 90-minute discussion was audiotaped, transcribed, and analyzed using qualitative methods. RESULTS: Learners believed that bedside teaching is valuable for learning essential clinical skills. They believed it is underutilized and described many barriers to its use: lack of respect for the patient; time constraints; learner autonomy; faculty attitude, knowledge, and skill; and overreliance on technology. Learners suggested a variety of strategies to mitigate barriers: orienting and including the patient; addressing time constraints through flexibility, selectivity, and integration with work; providing learners with reassurance, reinforcing their autonomy, and incorporating them into the teaching process; faculty development; and advocating evidence-based physical diagnosis. Students focused on the physical diagnosis aspects of bedside teaching, whereas views of residents reflected their multifaceted roles as learners, teachers, and managers. CONCLUSIONS: Bedside teaching is valuable but underutilized. Including the patient, collaborating with learners, faculty development, and promoting a supportive institutional culture can redress several barriers to bedside teaching.     

Trainee perspectives of COVID-19 impact on medical genetics education

PurposeThe SARS-CoV-2 pandemic abruptly altered medical education and clinical care. This work evaluates trainee perspectives of the impact of the pandemic on medical genetics education.MethodsA Qualtrics survey was sent to physician trainees who rotated in genetics before or midpandemic. Questions assessed patient care, didactic education, and competency in multiple domains. Number of clinic visits completed by trainees were collated through review of documentation.ResultsTwenty-three rotating residents completed the surveys. Five of the pediatric residents completed the elective during the pandemic. All residents participated in virtual care during the pandemic, and rotating residents reported an improvement in self-assessed competency in multiple domains. Potential weak areas of education midpandemic included dysmorphology and genetic counseling.ConclusionResidents on a genetics elective can gain crucial skills and knowledge even when the rotation is in a primarily virtual format. Supplemental dysmorphology and genetic counseling education may improve remote educational experiences. Further research across institutions may deepen understanding of the impact of the pandemic on education in genetics.     

Strategy for teaching radiology in a medical residency programme in infectious diseases construed through qualitative research

IntroductionTo understand the perspectives of infectious disease residents and their preceptors on teaching radiology in medical residency programmes in this speciality. The aim is to support the creation of a strategy to facilitate teaching and promote learning within the competency matrix, given the expanding role of diagnostic imaging methods in medicine. Thus, knowledge of radiology is an increasingly useful tool for professional practice in the area of infectious diseases.Material and methodsThis is a qualitative, exploratory investigation in which semi-structured interviews were conducted with resident physicians and preceptors of a medical residency programme in infectious diseases according to the paradigmatic approach of Foucault’s discourse analysis.ResultsBased on analysis of the interviews, the following central points are considered in developing a strategy to teach radiology in the medical residency programme in infectious diseases: understanding of the vocabulary used in radiology, development of good communication skills with radiologists, optimising the time dedicated to learning radiology, the correlation between aspects of radiology and anatomical pathology, as well as the systematisation of a teaching process.ConclusionThe appreciation for peer education and case discussions, particularly with a radiologist integrated into the medical residency team, indicate that these are the measures with the greatest potential to facilitate teaching and promote learning.     

Bioethics principles, informed consent, and ethical care for special populations: curricular needs expressed by men and women physicians-in-training

OBJECTIVE: Physicians-in-training today are learning in an ethical environment that is unprecedented in its complexity. There is a call for new approaches in preparing medical students and residents for the ethical and professional issues they will encounter. The perspectives of physicians-in-training at different levels regarding the level of curricular attention needed for emerging bioethics concepts, practical informed consent considerations, and the care of special populations are unknown. METHOD: The authors performed a hypothesis-driven, confidential survey study to assess perceived needs and preferences among medical students and residents related to medical ethics education at the University of New Mexico School of Medicine. RESULTS: A total of 336 physicians-in-training volunteered (62% response rate). Overall, strong interest was expressed for increased curricular attention to the domains of bioethics principles, informed consent, and care of special populations. Women students expressed greater interest generally. For certain domains, clinical students expressed relatively less curricular need and psychiatry and primary care residents expressed relatively greater curricular need. Two of the four hypotheses were supported, a third received partial support, and a fourth was not supported by the findings. DISCUSSION: To be valuable and effective, new ethics curricular approaches must be responsive to the current complex ethical environment and attentive to the preferences of medical students and residents of both genders, at different stages of training, with different patient care responsibilities. This hypothesis-driven study provides guidance for the inclusion of novel and important ethics domains in training curricula across medical school and diverse residency programs.     

Burnout among dutch medical residents

We examined levels of burnout and relationships between burnout, gender, age, years in training, and medical specialty in 158 medical residents working at the University Medical Center Groningen, the Netherlands. Thirteen percent of the residents met the criteria for burnout, with the highest percentage of burnout cases among medical residents in Psychiatry. Significantly more male residents than female residents suffered from severe burnout. Medical residents reported significantly lower mean scores on personal accomplishment than medical specialists and other health care workers; they also reported lower mean scores on emotional exhaustion than medical specialists. Male residents had significantly higher depersonalization scores than female residents. Positive significant relationships were found between personal accomplishment and age and years in training. Obstetrics & Gynecology residents reported significantly more personal accomplishment than residents in Psychiatry, Internal Medicine, Pediatrics, and Anesthesiology. Residents in Psychiatry had significantly lower scores on personal accomplishment than residents in Internal Medicine. Our findings show that burnout is present in a small but significant number of medical residents.     

Competency-based residency training: the next advance in graduate medical education.

The goal of all graduate medical education is to ensure that the graduating physician is competent to practice in his or her chosen field of medicine. The evaluation of a resident's competency to practice, however, has never been clearly defined, nor has the fixed period of time given for residency training in each specialty been shown to be the right amount of time for each individual resident to achieve competency. To better ensure that new physicians have the competencies they need, the author proposes the replacement of the current approach to residents' education, which specifies a fixed number of years in training, with competency-based training, in which each resident remains in training until he or she has been shown to have the required knowledge and skills and can apply them independently. Such programs, in addition to tailoring the training time to each individual, would make it possible to devise and test schemes to evaluate competency more surely than is now possible. The author reviews the basis of traditional residency training and the problems with the current training approach, both its fixed amount of time for training and the uncertainty of the methods of evaluation used. He then explains competency-based residency education, notes that it is possible, indeed probable, that some trainees will become competent considerably sooner than they would in the current required years of training, quotes a study in which this was the case, and explains the implications. He describes the encouraging experience of his neurosurgery department, which has used competency-based training for its residents since 1994. He then discusses issues of demonstrating competency in procedural and nonprocedural fields, as well as the evaluation of competency in traditional and competency-based training, emphasizing that the latter approach offers hope for better ways of assessing competency.     

Changing and sustaining medical students' knowledge, skills, and attitudes about patient safety and medical fallibility.

PURPOSE: To study the effects of a patient safety and medical fallibility curriculum on second-year medical students at the University of Missouri-Columbia School of Medicine in 2003-2004. METHOD: Students completed a knowledge, skills, and attitudes questionnaire before the curriculum, after the final learning experience, and one year later. A 95% confidence interval (CI) for paired differences assessed change over time. At one year, students also responded to items about their use of the curriculum, error reporting, and disclosure experiences. RESULTS: Fifty three of 92 students (55%) completed the questionnaire at all three assessment points. Students' eight items and the calculated knowledge score improved after the curriculum but only seven of these improvements were sustained one year. Responses to seven items did not change and five changed in an undesired direction after the curriculum and/or after one year. Seventy two students completed the self-reported behavior questions at one year. More than half reported using what they learned in the curriculum. Although 76% of students reported observing an error, 71% of these disclosed an error to their peers, 56% to a resident, and 46% to faculty. Only 7% reported an error using our electronic error reporting system. CONCLUSIONS: The curriculum led to changes in second-year medical students' knowledge, skills, and attitudes, but not all of the changes were sustained at one year, were in the desired direction, or were supported by their self-reported behaviors. The extent to which other informal or hidden curriculum experiences reversed the gains and affected the changes at one year is unknown.     

Empathy and error processing

Recent research suggests a relationship between empathy and error processing. Error processing is an evaluative control function that can be measured using post‐error response time slowing and the error‐related negativity (ERN) and post‐error positivity (Pe) components of the event‐related potential (ERP). Thirty healthy participants completed two measures of empathy, the Interpersonal Reactivity Index (IRI) and the Empathy Quotient (EQ), and a modified Stroop task. Post‐error slowing was associated with increased empathic personal distress on the IRI. ERN amplitude was related to overall empathy score on the EQ and the fantasy subscale of the IRI. The Pe and measures of empathy were not related. Results remained consistent when negative affect was controlled via partial correlation, with an additional relationship between ERN amplitude and empathic concern on the IRI. Findings support a connection between empathy and error processing mechanisms.     

A web-based system for students to document their experiences within six core competency domains during all clinical clerkships.

The authors describe the design and implementation of a new Web-based system that allows students to record important features of their clinical encounters during all 10 required clinical clerkships, document their learning experiences in six major competency domains, and generate detailed real-time reports for themselves and their clerkship directors. A new Web-based system, DMEDS (Dartmouth Medical Encounter Documentation System), accepts input from computers and PDAs. Its design permits students to describe their patients, learning sites, interactions with preceptors, and important aspects of their clinical encounters in all of our medical school's competency domains. Using a common format for all required clerkships, clerkship directors select specific items most relevant to their clerkships from a common menu and set learning targets for specific diagnoses and clinical skills. This new system was designed in the fall of 2003, tested in the spring of 2004, and implemented in all clerkships for the 2004 to 2005 academic year.During the first full academic year that DMEDS was used, students documented nearly 32,000 discrete student-patient-preceptor encounters, an average of between 21 and 120 clinical encounters per Year 3 clerkship. Highlights of the analysis of these initial data include the following: (1) insights into how educational targets are set, (2) the extent of site-to-site variation in clerkship experiences, (3) the epidemiology of patients' declining student involvement, and (4) student experiences in and understanding of the newer competency domains.DMEDS can be used in all clinical clerkships and can address student experiences in all competency domains. It provides substantial value to students, clerkship directors, preceptors, and medical school administrators. As secondary benefits, the authors found that DMEDS facilitates educational research and is readily adapted for use in residency and fellowship programs as well. Student feedback highlights the need to pay close attention to the time invested by students documenting their clinical encounters. Course directors must ensure that the benefits to students (such as knowledge of meeting learning targets and preceptors providing direct feedback to students) are transparent. Finally, for other schools contemplating the change to a competency-based curriculum with the use of a clinical encounter documentation system, the time required for both students and faculty to adopt and fully engage these major educational culture shifts seems to be at least several years.     

Professionalism in medical education: an institutional challenge.

Despite considerable attention to professionalism in medical education nationwide, the majority of attention has focused on training medical students, and less on residents and faculty. Curricular formats are often didactic, removed from the clinical setting, and frequently focus on abstract concepts. As a result of a recent curricular innovation at the University of Washington School of Medicine (UWSOM) in which role-model faculty work with medical students in teaching and modeling clinical skills and professionalism, a new professionalism curriculum was developed for preclinical medical students. Through student feedback, that curriculum has changed over time, and has become more focused on the clinical encounter. This new and evolving curriculum has raised awareness of the existence of an "ecology of professionalism." In this ecological model, changes in the understanding of and attention to professionalism at one institutional level lead to changes at other levels. At the UWSOM, heightened attention to professionalism at the medical student level led to awareness of the need for increased attention to teaching and modeling professionalism among faculty, residents, and staff. This new understanding of professionalism as an institutional responsibility has helped UWSOM teachers and administrators recognize and promote mechanisms that create a "safe" environment for fostering professionalism. In such an institutional culture, students, residents, faculty, staff, and the institution itself are all held accountable for professional behavior, and improvement must be addressed at all levels.     

Prior experiences associated with residents' scores on a communication and interpersonal skill OSCE

OBJECTIVE: This exploratory study investigated whether prior task experience and comfort correlate with scores on an assessment of patient-centered communication. METHODS: A six-station standardized patient exam assessed patient-centered communication of 79 PGY2-3 residents in Internal Medicine and Family Medicine. A survey provided information on prior experiences. t-tests, correlations, and multi-factorial ANOVA explored relationship between scores and experiences. RESULTS: Experience with a task predicted comfort but did not predict communication scores. Comfort was moderately correlated with communication scores for some tasks; residents who were less comfortable were indeed less skilled, but greater comfort did not predict higher scores. Female gender and medical school experiences with standardized patients along with training in patient-centered interviewing were associated with higher scores. Residents without standardized patient experiences in medical school were almost five times more likely to be rejected by patients. CONCLUSIONS: Task experience alone does not guarantee better communication, and may instill a false sense of confidence. Experiences with standardized patients during medical school, especially in combination with interviewing courses, may provide an element of "deliberate practice" and have a long-term impact on communication skills. PRACTICE IMPLICATIONS: The combination of didactic courses and practice with standardized patients may promote a patient-centered approach.     

The Beginning of the Research Stream in Family Medicine Residency Program at McMaster University

Background

To examine research background, attitudes, knowledge and skills of family medicine residents with regard to primary care research and to compare residents who elected to participate in the research stream with those who did not.

Methods

Mailed survey of Family Medicine residents at McMaster University in 1998, 70% (52/74) of whom responded. The main outcome measures consisted of research background; attitudes towards primary care research and research activities during residency program; knowledge and skills in applying it in biostatistics, epidemiology, and research design.

Results

The vast majority of the residents reported previous research experience and/or some training in epidemiology and biostatistics. Residents in the research stream were more likely to be female and were positive towards primary care research: they were more interested in research, more interested in obtaining more research training while a resident, and placed more importance on developing research early in medical education. The research stream residents had stronger views regarding perceived lack of support staff and lack of time for research. There were no statistically significant differences between the research stream and other residents in terms of research knowledge and skills in applying it.

Conclusions

Attitudes towards research rather than research knowledge or skills seemed to distinguish those selecting to be in our new research stream at the inception.