Kent J. Sheets

Faculty development for family medicine educators: An agenda for future activities

The literature on faculty development activities for family medicine educators is reviewed and presented in three sections: (a) overview of faculty development in family medicine, (b) fellowships, and (c) workshops and other short‐term programs. Although a wide variety of formats have been utilized for faculty development purposes in family medicine, most faculty development programs have been evaluated primarily on participant satisfaction rather than on observed changes in participant behavior when in the faculty role. As funds for family medicine faculty development programs disappear or decline, new strategies for maintaining the quantity and quality of family medicine educators must be developed. We suggestan agenda for future faculty development activities in family medicine. These activities include (a) initiation of faculty development training, including teaching and research skills, during residency training programs, (b) development of fourth‐year clinical fellow positions supported by clinical...

Preparing Surgery House Officers for Their Teaching Role

The medical education literature was reviewed in four categories: (1) general studies of house officer teaching, (2) perceptions of the house officers teaching role, (3) assessing and improving resident teaching skills, and (4) the teaching role of surgery residents. An agenda for research and development related to surgery resident teaching skills was proposed based on four research questions: (1) What types of teaching skills are most appropriate for surgery residents? (2) How do faculty and student expectations of resident teaching influence surgery resident teaching? (3) What type of intervention is most successful in improving surgery resident teaching skills? (4) What are other outcomes of improved surgery resident teaching besides resident and learner satisfaction? This important teaching role should be more formally and widely acknowledged by surgery faculty, and appropriate teaching skill improvement activities should be provided for all surgery house officers.

Evaluation of a faculty development program for family physicians.

Faculty development programs are frequently conducted for family physicians as a mechanism to train and retrain faculty. However, these programs are rarely subjected to comprehensive evaluations that assess outcomes other than participant satisfaction. This paper describes a comprehensive evaluation study that collected reaction, cognitive and behavioral data on participants in a faculty development program for family physicians. Data were collected using a variety of evaluations strategies and sources of data over a period of time from the first day of the program until 9 months following its completion. Results were consistent across measures and sources and indicated that the participants learned new cognitive content and applied knowledge and skills acquired during the program. Participants, their supervisors and the faculty development program faculty consistently reported high satisfaction with the program. Thus, the evaluation study demonstrated that the program was successful and had the desired i...

Personal and Behavioral Variables Related to Perceived Stress of Second-Year Medical Students.

A study of second‐year medical students was conducted to determine if selected personal and behavioral variables are related to the perceived amount of stress. Medical students from seven medical schools (N = 555) responded to a mailed questionnaire that assessed their degree of academic, personal, and professional stress. Factors that significantly related to amount of academic stress were general satisfaction with life, sex of student, physical activity, alcohol use, hours of sleep per night, and total number of recent losses and misfortunes. Factors that significantly related to amount of personal stress were general satisfaction with life, sex of student, drug use, number of sensation‐seeking sports and total number of recent losses and misfortunes. Although measured, professional stress was not considered an important component of a second‐year medical students educational experience.

Influencing the Attitudes of Medical Students Toward Diabetes: Results of a controlled study

OBJECTIVE To determine the effect of two educational interventions on the diabetes-related attitudes of medical students. RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS We studied 67 junior and senior medical students who were participating in the University of Michigan Medical Schools Family Practice elective clerkship. Students were assigned to one of two interventions. The first was a 1-wk living-with-diabetes behavioral simulation that involved injections, blood glucose monitoring, diet, exercise, and record keeping. The second intervention involved reading an autobiography about living with diabetes and viewing a videotape about the psychosocial impact of diabetes. RESULTS No differential impact was found between the two interventions. However, both interventions were followed by a modest positive change in the attitudes of the medical students (which were very positive to begin with) toward the importance of patient autonomy and the value of the team approach to diabetes care. The attitude gains persisted at follow-up for patient autonomy but returned to baseline for team care. CONCLUSIONS This study suggests that these two educational interventions resulted in modest increases in the already positive attitudes of medical students toward the importance of patient autonomy and team care in diabetes. However, because the study did not include a group that received no treatment, we cannot be certain on this point. The attitude gain related to team care did not persist at follow-up. These findings are consistent with classical attitude research, which suggests that attitudes are sensitive to influences such as these interventions, but that attitude changes may not persist when those influences are changed or withdrawn. We were not able to find a differential impact between the two interventions and suspect that the general nature of the DAS used as the dependent measure may not have been sensitive enough to capture such a differential impact.

Competency-based education: programme design and challenges to implementation.

Competency‐based education (CBE) has been widely cited as an educational framework for medical students and residents, and provides a framework for designing educational programmes that reflect four critical features: a focus on outcomes, an emphasis on abilities, a reduction of emphasis on time‐based training, and promotion of learner centredness. Each of these features has implications and potential challenges for implementing CBE.

Assessment challenges in competency-based education: A case study in health professions education

Abstract There is a growing demand for health sciences faculty with formal training in education. Addressing this need, the University of Michigan Medical School created a Master in Health Professions Education (UM-MHPE). The UM-MHPE is a competency-based education (CBE) program targeting professionals. The program is individualized and adaptive to the learner’s situation using personal mentoring. Critical to CBE is an assessment process that accurately and reliably determines a learner’s competence in educational domains. The program’s assessment method has two principal components: an independent assessment committee and a learner repository. Learners submit evidence of competence that is evaluated by three independent assessors. The assessments are presented to an Assessment Committee who determines whether the submission provides evidence of competence. The learner receives feedback on the submission and, if needed, the actions needed to reach competency. During the program’s first year, six learners presented 10 submissions for review. Assessing learners in a competency-based program has created challenges; setting standards that are not readily quantifiable is difficult. However, we argue it is a more genuine form of assessment and that this process could be adapted for use within most competency-based formats. While our approach is demanding, we document practical learning outcomes that assess competence.

The Reporting of Curriculum Development Activities in the Health Professions

This study examined how curriculum development efforts are reported in the health professions literature. From the classic curriculum development literature, we abstracted a common set of curriculum development components and steps that we subsequently used to evaluate 85 articles on curriculum development efforts in medicine, nursing, allied health, and dentistry. Only 29% of the articles mentioned all four components of a curriculum, and only 12% of the articles reported all steps in the curriculum development process. Twenty‐seven percent of the articles reported using educational consultants or units in describing curriculum development efforts. More than half the articles’ citations were to references from the content of the profession of the curriculum being developed. Authors of the identified curriculum development articles generally did not follow established curriculum development principles, involve others with curriculum development training, or include curriculum development literature among ...

Teaching Skill Improvement for Graduate Medical Trainees An Agenda for Research and Development

The medical education literature concerned with the teaching role fulfilled by house officers was reviewed by the authors. Articles were presented in three categories: (1) studies of house officer effort, (2) perceptions of the house officers teaching role, and (3) assessing and improving house officer teaching skills. House officers are involved in a large amount of teaching, greatly influence students, and fulfill a unique teaching role in medical education that is complementary to thefaculty teaching role. An agendafor research and development in the area of research teaching skills was proposed based on three broad research questions: (1) What types of teaching skills are most appropriate for residents? (2) How do faculty and student expectations of resident teaching influence resident teaching? (3) What type of intervention is most successful in improving resident teaching skills?

Evaluating Short-Term Training Programs: A Practical Approach.

Short-term training programs are frequently used to implement faculty development activities in post-secondary education. However, rarely are these programs systematically evaluated to assess their impact on program participants. This article describes an evaluation framework that was designed, developed, and implemented as an evaluation study of an existing faculty development program for family physicians. The study demonstrated the effectiveness of the faculty development program and a metaevaluation of the evaluation study identified the strength and weaknesses of the evaluation framework. The original framework was modified according to the metaevaluation results and presented for possible adoption by other instructional developers and evaluation.