Ongoing transformations in health professions education underscore the need for valid and reliable assessment. The current standard for assessment validation requires evidence from five sources: content, response process, internal structure, relations with other variables, and consequences. However, researchers remain uncertain regarding the types…

Clinical supervision requires that supervisors make decisions about how much independence to allow their trainees for patient care tasks. The simultaneous goals of ensuring quality patient care and affording trainees appropriate and progressively greater responsibility require that the supervising physician trusts the trainee. Trust allows the…

The knowledge and skills that are required for radiological image interpretation are not well documented, even though medical imaging is gaining importance. This study aims to develop a comprehensive framework of knowledge and skills, required for two-dimensional and multiplanar image interpretation in radiology. A mixed-method study approach was…

Background: Educators are concerned by the high prevalence of emotional distress among medical students, and by the alleged decline in their humanitarian values. Objective To re-examine these concerns by reviewing studies of medical students' wellbeing and development. Method Narrative review of the literature. Main findings: (a) Medical…

The objective of this narrative review of the literature is to draw attention to four undesirable features of the medical learning environment (MLE). First, students' fears of personal inadequacy and making errors are enhanced rather than alleviated by the hidden curriculum of the clinical teaching setting; second, the MLE projects a denial…

Outcome based or competency based education (OBE) is so firmly established in undergraduate medical education that it might not seem necessary to ask why it was included in recommendations for the future, like the Flexner centenary report. Uncritical acceptance may not, however, deliver its greatest benefits. Our aim was to explore the…

Medical educators aim to train physicians with sound scientific knowledge, expert clinical skills and an ability to work effectively with patients, colleagues and health systems. Over the past century, educators have devoted considerable thought and effort to how medical education might be improved. Analysing the language used to describe these…

Peer-physical examination is a widely adopted and an integral component of the undergraduate curriculum for many health science programs. Unwillingness or perceived inability to participate in peer-physical examination classes may have a negative impact upon students' abilities to competently conduct physical examinations of patients in…

An essential goal of evaluation is to foster learning. Across the medical education spectrum, evaluation of clinical performance is dominated by subjective feedback to learners based on observation by expert supervisors. Research in non-medical settings has suggested that participants' perceptions of evaluation processes exert considerable…

Health care professionals are expected to use a systematic approach based on evidence, professional reasoning and client preferences in order to improve client outcomes. In other words, they are expected to work within an evidence-based practice (EBP) context. This expectation has had an impact on occupational therapy academic programs' mandates…

This paper reports on a qualitative study investigating how Australian health professionals may be developing and deploying essential clinical informatics capabilities in the first 5 years of their professional practice. It explores the experiences of four professionals in applying what they have learned formally and informally during their…

We reviewed the literature on instruments for work-based assessment in single clinical encounters, such as the mini-clinical evaluation exercise (mini-CEX), and examined differences between these instruments in characteristics and feasibility, reliability, validity and educational effect. A PubMed search of the literature published before 8…

A wide variety of countries are seeking to attract international medical students. This could be due to the fact that their universities not only receive the economic benefit from these students, but also because they recognise the issues of cultural diversity and pedagogical practice. This review paper draws on literature to understand more fully…

The importance of reflection and reflective practice are frequently noted in the literature; indeed, reflective capacity is regarded by many as an essential characteristic for professional competence. Educators assert that the emergence of reflective practice is part of a change that acknowledges the need for students to act and to think…

More than 500,000 flexible bronchoscopies are performed annually by chest physicians in the United States (Ernst et al., Chest 123:1693-1717, 2003). Indications include diagnosis of lung cancer and airway tumors, benign strictures, pulmonary infections, and treatment of central airway obstruction, emphysema, and intraepithelial lesions such as…