Marc Van Nuland

Comparison of two instruments for assessing communication skills in a general practice objective structured clinical examination

Objective  In recent decades, there has been increased interest in tools for assessing and improving the communication skills of general practice trainees. Recently, experts in the field rated the older Maas Global (MG) and the newer Common Ground (CG) instruments among the better communication skills assessment tools. This report seeks to establish their cross‐validity.

How to connect classroom and workplace learning

Transition, the ‘dynamic process in which the individual moves from one set of circumstances to another’, features prominently in the training of students across the health professions. 1 Changes in students’ expectations, tasks or responsibilities frequently accompany each transition. 1 One of these transitions occurs when students move from the nonclinical setting or classroom to the clinical environment. 2 To avoid an abrupt transition into real clinical work, workplace experiences are increasingly integrated into the fi rst years of medical school; 3 however, no matter how integrated curricula may be, changes and transitions are unavoidable. 4 Within all transitions, students are required to continuously apply and refi ne the classroomacquired Transition features prominently in the training of students across the health professions Editors’ note: Health professional educators are increasingly interested in times of transition: from school to university; from student to recently graduated health professional in the fi rst days of practice; and from predominantly classroom-based learning to immersion in clinical settings. This toolbox article focuses on this last transition, an important time in the education of (in this case) medical students. The authors base the six practical recommendations on their own experiences as clinical educators as well as being guided by the literature on this topic. The transfer of learning to the workplace and to patient care may be diffi cult. Students require regular supervised practise of the competencies learned in the classroom and through simulation. Timely interactive feedback is important. One role of clinical teachers is to provide student support in order to facilitate students in their transition to workplace learning.