Objective: Communication skills are important, but the evaluation of these skills in the medical curriculum remains inconsistent. The aim of this study was to explore the relationship between the communication skills scores of junior medical students following curricula with different module evaluations and the clinical interview performance of…

This study aims to explore how online searching plays a role during PBL tutorials in two undergraduate health sciences curricula, Medicine and Dentistry. Utilizing Interactional Ethnography (IE) as an organizing framework for data collection and analysis, and drawing on a critical theory of technology as an explanatory lens, enabled a textured…

The purpose of this qualitative case study was two-fold: to investigate the dialog about psychosocial aspects of health care in problem based learning (PBL) groups in a single medical school; and to describe the factors that learners and PBL facilitators identify as influencing dialog about these issues in PBL groups. Medical education is a…

School leaders make countless decisions but do not receive adequate preparation for communicating their decisions to parents, students, and teachers. Building on the need to prepare school leaders for a variety of complex professional situations, this article introduces the medical education pedagogy of standardized patients to the field of school…

This paper considers the multiple discourses that influence medical education with a focus on the discourses of competence and caring. Discourses of competence are largely constituted through, and related to, biomedical and clinical issues whereas discourses of caring generally focus on social concerns. These discourses are not necessarily equal…

Medical education helps ensure doctors acquire skills and knowledge needed to care for patients. However, resident duty hour restrictions have impacted time residents have for medical education, leaving resident educators searching for innovative options for effective medical education. Classroom situated e-learning, a blended learning delivery…

This article presents a phenomenographic study that investigates students' approaches to achieving understanding. The results are based on interviews, addressing physiological phenomena, with 16 medical students in a problem-based curriculum. Four approaches--sifting, building, holding and moving--are outlined. The holding and moving approaches…

Medical education is undergoing one of its most intense reassessments in a quarter of a century. The current reassessments often have focused on reevaluation of the manner in which basic science and clinical education are provided. This paper aims to identify and illustrate the processes by which members of "MWCOM" (a pseudonym), a…

Introduction: This paper reports on part of a research project on relationships between learning methods and students' information behaviour in Finland. It has been suggested that student-centred learning methods, such as problem-based learning, influence students' information needs, seeking and use. The focus of this paper is on the concept of…

A study explored some of the ways that the members of a medical educational institution make sense out of the radical pedagogical innovation taking place in their school. Interviews and focus groups were conducted with members at "MWCOM" (a pseudonym), then data were analyzed according to three primary themes which revolve around how…

Irrational prescribing originates in undergraduate therapeutics education, where prescribing skills have been overlooked. P-drug, a rational prescribing approach, has been developed in response to poor prescribing. In 2004, the first cohort of PBL final year students at Nelson R. Mandela School of Medicine reported feeling unprepared to prescribe…

A set of instructional materials for acquisition of clinical reasoning skills through independent study has been developed that uses simulation of patient encounters and addresses both medical and psychosocial issues. Small group instruction with the materials is preferred over individual use. (MSE)

A curriculum involving reduced lecture time, small-group tutorials, a commitment to problem-based learning (PBL), and a strong reliance on self-directed study, was implemented at Harvard Medical School in 1985. This study focuses on the attitudes of 14 faculty tutors who had never tutored in a PBL curriculum. (MLW)