Medical Education Scholarship Research Articles

Theory Development and Application in Medical Education

The role and status of theory is by no means a new topic in medical education. Yet summarizing where we have been and where we are going with respect to theory development and application is difficult because our community has not yet fully elucidated what constitutes medical education theory. In this article, we explore the idea of conceptualizing theory as an effect on scholarly dialogue among medical educators. We describe theory-enabled conversation as argumentation, which frames inquiry, permits the evaluation of evidence, and enables the acquisition of community understanding that has utility beyond investigators’ local circumstances. We present ideas for assessing argumentation quality and suggest approaches to increasing the frequency and quality of argumentation in the exchange among diverse medical education scholars.

Reconstructing a lost tradition: the philosophy of medical education in an age of reform

At the 100th anniversary of Abraham Flexner's landmark report on medical education, critical reassessment of the direction of medical education reform evinced valuable interdisciplinary contributions from biomedicine, sociology, psychology and education theory. However, to date, philosophy has been absent from the discussion despite its long standing contribution to studies on education in other professions. This discussion paper examines how the philosophical tradition can contribute to scholarship in medical education. It begins with an explanation of the scholarly tradition of philosophy of education and its role in thinking in education more generally. It then makes links between this tradition and the context of medical education in the Flexner era of education reform. The paper then argues that this tradition is necessary to the understanding of medical education reform post-Flexner and that doctors must benefit from an education derived from this tradition in order to be able to carry out their work. These foundations are characterised as a hidden, but always present, tradition in medical education. Two ways in which this 'lost tradition' can inform medical education theory and practice are identified: firstly, by the establishment of a public canon of medical education texts that express such a tradition, and, secondly, by the incorporation of a variety of 'signature pedagogies' exemplary of liberal education.

Defining A Core Curriculum for Education Scholarship Fellowships in Emergency Medicine

A trained cadre of medical education scholars with a focus on methodologically sound research techniques is needed to ensure development of innovations that can be translated to educational practice, rigorous evaluation of instructional strategies, and progress toward improving patient care outcomes. Most established educational programs are aimed at existing faculty members and focus primarily on the development of teaching and leadership skills. At the 2012 Academic Emergency Medicine (AEM) consensus conference, "Education Research in Emergency Medicine: Opportunities, Challenges, and Strategies for Success," a breakout session was convened to develop training recommendations for postgraduate fellowship programs in medical education scholarship that would enable residency graduates to join academic faculties armed with the skills needed to perform research in medical education. Additionally, these graduates would enjoy the benefits of established mentorships. A group of 23 medical education experts collaborated to address the following objectives: 1) construct a formal needs assessment for fellowship training in medical education scholarship in emergency medicine (EM), 2) compare and contrast current education scholarship programs in both EM and non-EM specialties, and 3) develop a set of core curriculum guidelines for specialized fellowship training in medical education scholarship in EM. Fellowship-trained faculty need to be proficient in learner instruction and assessment, organizational leadership, curriculum development, educational methodology, and conducting generalizable hypothesis-driven research to improve patient care.

Keynote Address: The Focus on Competencies and Individual Learner Assessment as Emerging Themes in Medical Education Research

This article describes opportunities for scholarship in medical education, based on a brief overview of recent changes in medical education. The implications arising from these changes are discussed, with recommendations for focus, and suggestions and examples for making progress in this field. The author discusses 1) the historical context of the current shift toward competency-based medical education, 2) the potential contribution of social and behavioral sciences to medical education scholarship, 3) methods and approaches for supporting scholarship in medical education, and very briefly 4) trends in simulation. The author concludes with a call for quality in medical education scholarship and argues that the most promising and fruitful area of medical education scholarship for the future lies in the field of assessment of individual competence.

APMEC 2013: In Celebration of Innovation and Scholarship in Medical and Health Professional Education

APMEC 2013: In Celebration of Innovation and Scholarship in Medical and Health Professional Education

Perspective

Medical and health sciences educators are increasingly employing team-based learning (TBL) in their teaching activities. TBL is a comprehensive strategy for developing and using self-managed learning teams that has created a fertile area for medical education scholarship. However, because this method can be implemented in a variety of ways, published reports about TBL may be difficult to understand, critique, replicate, or compare unless authors fully describe their interventions.The authors of this article offer a conceptual model and propose a set of guidelines for standardizing the way that the results of TBL implementations are reported and critiqued. They identify and articulate the seven core design elements that underlie the TBL method and relate them to educational principles that maximize student engagement and learning within teams. The guidelines underscore important principles relevant to many forms of small-group learning. The authors suggest that following these guidelines when writing articles about TBL implementations should help standardize descriptive information in the medical and health sciences education literature about the essential aspects of TBL activities and allow authors and reviewers to successfully replicate TBL implementations and draw meaningful conclusions about observed outcomes.

Review article: Leading the future: guiding two predominant paradigm shifts in medical education through scholarship

The purpose of this article is to consolidate some of the key concepts about scholarship in education related to the specialty of anesthesiology. We frame the discussion on two paradigm shifts in medical education, i.e., competency-based education and lifelong learning, and the scholarly approaches to lead these paradigm shifts in anesthesiology. Conventional medical education is being challenged by a shift from time-based education to competency-based education. This potential shift will also create a continuous need to foster a culture of lifelong learning in contrast with the traditional compartmentalized model of undergraduate, postgraduate, and continuing medical education. The specialty of anesthesia has the capacity to lead these changes by enhancing scholarship in education locally and nationally. The promotion of scholarship in education necessitates the creation of infrastructure and accountability frameworks to show return on investment. High-quality scholarship in medical education requires a solid rationale and, ultimately, a demonstrable benefit to patient care. Accountability of lifelong learning to established competency frameworks seems inevitable. Anesthesiology is one of only a few specialties that can truly protect faculty from clinical responsibilities in favour of scholarship pursuits. With appropriate support for scholarship in education, anesthesiologists have an opportunity to lead these paradigm shifts.

University of Nebraska College of Medicine

University of Nebraska College of Medicine

University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine

University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine

University of Chicago Division of the Biological Sciences Pritzker School of Medicine

University of Chicago Division of the Biological Sciences Pritzker School of Medicine

University of Massachusetts Medical School

University of Massachusetts Medical School

University of New Mexico School of Medicine

University of New Mexico School of Medicine

University of Arizona College of Medicine: Tucson and Phoenix

University of Arizona College of Medicine: Tucson and Phoenix

Faculty Development in Medical Education Research: A Cooperative Model

As the definition of scholarship is clarified, each specialty should develop a cadre of medical education researchers who can design, test, and optimize educational interventions. In 2004, the Association for American Medical Colleges' Group on Educational Affairs developed the Medical Education Research Certificate (MERC) program to provide a curriculum to help medical educators acquire or enhance skills in medical education research, to promote effective collaboration with seasoned researchers, and to create better consumers of medical education scholarship. MERC courses are offered to individuals during educational meetings. Educational leaders in emergency medicine (EM) identified a disparity between the "scholarship of teaching" and medical education research skills, and they collaborated with the MERC steering committee to develop a mentored faculty development program in medical education research. A planning committee comprising experienced medical education researchers who are also board-certified, full-time EM faculty members designed a novel approach to the MERC curriculum: a mentored team approach to learning, grounded in collaborative medical education research projects. The planning committee identified areas of research interest among participants and formed working groups to collaborate on research projects during standard MERC workshops. Rather than focusing on individual questions during the course, each mentored group identified a single study hypothesis. After completing the first three workshops, group members worked under their mentors' guidance on their multiinstitutional research projects. The expected benefits of this approach to MERC include establishing a research community network, creating projects whose enrollments offer a multiinstitutional dimension, and developing a cadre of trained education researchers in EM.

Medical Education and Information Literacy in the Era of Open Access

The Open Access movement in scholarly communications poses new issues and concerns for medical education in general and information literacy education specifically. For medical educators, Open Access can affect the availability of new information, instructional materials, and scholarship in medical education. For students, Open Access materials continue to be available to them post-graduation, regardless of affiliation. Libraries and information literacy librarians are challenged in their responses to the Open Access publishing movement in how best to support Open Access endeavors within their own institutions, and how best to educate their user base about Open Access in general.

Getting Started in Medical Education Scholarship

Education scholarship and research are critically important in extending our ability to teach and assess effectively. Those considering a scholarly project in medical education should consider the following tips, learned from personal experience and supported by literature: 1) get some training, 2) find a mentor, 3) ask important questions, 4) start small and grow, 5) aim high, 6) don't wait for the perfect study, 7) plan for adequate time and other resources, 8) attend to ethical issues, 9) network with others in the field, and 10) recognize that this is hard work. By following these steps and planning ahead, scholars will be better poised to make meaningful contributions to the art and science of medical education.

A descriptive study of medical educators' views of problem-based learning

BackgroundThere is a growing amount of literature on the benefits and drawbacks of Problem-Based Learning (PBL) compared to conventional curricula. However, it seems that PBL research studies do not provide information rigorously and formally that can contribute to making evidence-based medical education decisions. The authors performed an investigation aimed at medical education scholars around the question, "What are the views of medical educators concerning the PBL approach?"MethodsAfter framing the question, the method of data collection relied on asking medical educators to report their views on PBL. Two methods were used for collecting data: the questionnaire survey and an online discussion forum.ResultsThe descriptive analysis of the study showed that many participants value the PBL approach in the practice and training of doctors. However, some participants hold contrasting views upon the importance of the PBL approach in basic medical education. For example, more than a third of participants (38.5%) had a neutral stance on PBL as a student-oriented educational approach. The same proportion of participants also had a neutral view of the efficiency of traditional learning compared to a PBL tutorial. The open-ended question explored the importance of faculty development in PBL. A few participants had negative perceptions of the epistemological assumptions of PBL. Two themes emerged from the analysis of the forum repliers: the importance of the faculty role and self-managed education.ConclusionWhilst many participants valued the importance of the PBL approach in the practice and training of doctors and agreed with most of the conventional descriptions of PBL, some participants held contrasting views on the importance of the PBL approach in undergraduate medical education. However there was a strong view concerning the importance of facilitator training. More research is needed to understand the process of PBL better.

The Research Innovation and Scholarship in Education Program: An Innovative Way to Nurture Education

Education is becoming a recognized career path in psychiatry. Yet, there are few published accounts of how to create sustainable structures within departments to support this academic focus. The authors document the creation and 5-year progress of the Research Innovation and Scholarship in Education (RISE) program at the largest psychiatry department in Canada. The authors analyzed the RISE archive of early proposals for enhancing scholarship in the department, the 5-year plan, annual reports, and curricular vitae of members and also gathered testimonials from inaugural residents and fellows of the program. Materials were analyzed using Boyer's framework of scholarship. Organizationally, RISE has embodied all four tenets of Boyer's model of scholarship. The program has allowed education research, teaching, and creative professional development to flourish in the department, and there are considerably fewer barriers to pursuing an education career path. However, as the program expands, more work needs to be done to increase funding and protected time so that even more residents, fellows, and faculty can engage in educational scholarship. Enhancing medical education scholarship through a model that actively integrates research with teaching, creative professional development, and mentorship can help the trajectories of faculty and students wishing to make education a priority in their careers.

Further Insights Into the Roles of the Medical Educator: The Importance of Scholarly Management

Medical educators need to be able to define excellence within the various roles they occupy so that they can demonstrate internationally recognized, high-quality scholarship. Previous definitions of scholarship have focused on research and teaching but have been unable to integrate other roles such as leadership, management, and administration. Clearer definition of the various roles of the medical educator, coupled with a broader understanding of medical education scholarship that is able to encompass management, as well as teaching and research, will help institutions to evaluate and reward faculty members appropriately. We propose that management should now be introduced as a third "priority of the professoriate." We outline the concept of the scholarly manager, particularly as it applies to management in medical education. We offer a new conceptual model which situates the role of the academic manager within the scholarship of medical education and shows it to be an essential part of the skills and competences of the excellent medical educator. We emphasize that at the heart of all scholarly activity in medical education lie the core skills, values, and behaviors shared by all involved in the education of doctors and medical students. Future research is needed to explore and, where possible, achieve consensus on the core skills, values, and behaviors of an excellent medical educator. In addition, work should commence to define and categorize the various stages in the development of a significant management portfolio in medical education teaching and research.

Navigating the JGIM Special Issue on Medical Education

We are pleased to bring you the Journal of General Internal Medicine 2008 Education Issue. Over the past several months we have had the privilege of reviewing 133 submitted manuscripts in order to select these 41 for publication. This has challenged us to reflect on improving and standardizing our approach to education manuscripts. In this issue, Reed et al.1 report on the methodological quality of the submitted manuscripts, and Cook et al.2 provide much needed guidance for the future. We hope this special issue will engage the JGIM readership and members of the education community in discourse and in this way advance our collective notion of quality in medical education scholarship. In this overview, we briefly summarize the themes explored in the 41 articles and 4 editorials that we, along with the many peer reviewers who participated, selected. Working on this issue has led us to ask many interesting questions about the state of medical education research and scholarship.