Sometimes health professional education can be embarrassing.  Despite the maturity of the field, there are occasions when a study, such as the one in Jon's paper selection this week, can highlight shared assumptions among clinician educators. So, what is the most effective way to teach a technical skill? The KeyLIME team is here to help you figure it out! 

Authors: Rossettini G, Rondoni A, Palese A, Cecchetto S, Vicentini M, Bettale F, Furri L, Testa M.

Publication details: Effective teaching of manual skills to physiotherapy students. A Randomized Clinical Trial. Medical Education. 2017. August. [ePub ahead of print]

Empathy is widely regarded as a critical element of patient care and medical education. The more you have, the greater the patient and provider satisfaction, greater adherence to therapy, greater physician well-being and perceived clinical decision-making, greater physician joy at work. Jason's paper selection looks at "what is 'empathy' in health care, anyway?" and has the co-hosts questioning their own construct of empathy.

Authors: Costa P, de Carvalho-Filho MA, Schweller M, Thiemann P, Salgueira A, Benson J, Costa MJ, Quince T.

Publication details: Measuring Medical Students' Empathy: Exploring the Underlying Constructs of and Associations Between Two Widely Used Self-Report Instruments in Five Countries. Academic Medicine. 2016 Nov 1. [Epub ahead of print] PubMed Link

Feedback to learners has always been important in Med Ed and is getting even more air time with the advent of CBME and mastery learning. While there has been a lot of literature on various aspects of feedback, it has not been broadly assessed. This scoping review, chosen by Linda, offers a wide perspective on the literature which may lead to further deeper reviews.

Authors: Bing-You R, Hayes V, Varaklis K, Trowbridge R, Kemp H, McKelvy D.

Publication details: Feedback for Learners in Medical Education: What Is Known? A Scoping Review. Academic Medicine. 2017 Feb 7. [Epub ahead of print] PubMed Link

Gender bias in the workplace should come as no surprise to KeyLIME-ers.  Yet, many do not realize how pervasive sexism can be in the assessment of trainees in our residency programs. Jon's selection showcases the significant issue of gender bias in the academic environment and the hosts attempt to understand the scope of the problem. 

Authors: Dayal A, O’Connor DM, Qadri U, Arora VM. 

Publication details: Comparison of Male vs Female Resident Milestone Evaluations by Faculty During Emergency Medicine Residency Training.  JAMA Internal Medicine. 2017. March 6. [ePub ahead of print] PubMed Link

As the old adage goes- does ‘practice make perfect’?  Or the not so old saying coming from mastery learning – does ‘perfect practice makes perfect’? The authors of Linda's selected paper - a report on a randomized education trial - want to convince us that ‘imperfect practice makes perfect’.  

Authors: Dyre L , Tabor A, Ringstead C, Toldsgaard, MG.

Publication details: Imperfect practice makes perfect: error management training improves transfer of learning. Medical Education. 2017 Feb;51(2):196-206. PubMed Link

Jason selects an article from Medical Education and the co-hosts discuss: When it comes to physicians in practice, what should clinician-educators focus on to make the most difference in patient outcomes?

Authors: Norcini JJ, Boulet JR, Opalek A, Dauphinee WD. 

Publication details: Patients of doctors further from medical school graduation have poorer outcomes. Medical Education. 2017. 51(5):480. PubMed Link

Linda's article selection asks: if HPESUs (health professions education scholarship units) are defined as “organizational structures within which a group of people is substantively engaged in health professions education scholarship’’ -  does this mean heads of HPESUs act as Institutional Entrepreneurs? 

Authors: Varpio L, O'Brien B, Durning S, van der Vleuten C, Gruppen L, Ten Cate O, Humphrey-Murto S, Irby DM, Hamstra SJ, Hu W.

Publication details: Health Professions Education Scholarship Unit Leaders as Institutional Entrepreneurs. Academic Medicine. 2017. Jan 24 [ePub ahead of print]. PubMed Link

In this episode:  In this week's paper, selected by Jon, the co-hosts discuss whether a a closed-book exam - that requires a learner to have encoded and recall the required information - is a superior educational process to an open-book exam that requires a learner to appraise and apply an array of widely available information?  

Authors: Durning SJ, Dong T, Ratcliffe T, Schuwirth L, Artino AR Jr, Boulet JR, Eva K.

Publication details: Comparing Open-Book and Closed-Book Examinations: A Systematic Review. Academic Medicine. 2016 Apr; 91(4):583-99. PubMed link

When was the last time you, dear KeyLIME listener, was observed performing a clinical task by someone who had some kind of power over your career? Was it a colleague as part of a simulation? An administrative leader? Was it at a conference? Was it a mandatory peer review? Was it comfortable for you? Did you change what you would normally do in that situation? Jason's choice this week explores that kind of experience, namely: the lived experience of physicians who have had direct observation while performing clinical tasks. 

Authors: LaDonna K, Hatala R, Lingard L, Voyer S, Watling C.

Publication details: Staging a performance: Learners’ perceptions about direct observation during residency. Medical Education. 2017 May;51(5):498-510

Linda's selection hails from a relatively unknown journal. The paper's author proposes that there is a link between the quality of case presentations (CP) by learners and the learner’s diagnostic reasoning (DR) ability.

Author: Onishi, H.

Publication details: Assessment of Clinical Reasoning by Listening to Case Presentations: VSOP Method for Better Feedback. Journal of Medical Education and Curricular Development. 2016 (3): 125-131. Link to article abstract