A Collaborative: The Stanford Medical Education Research Group

2008-03-21T01:04:00.000-07:00

Dynamic, exploratory, and emergent। That describes the productive session we had today. Sylvia requested feedback on her upcoming ethnographic presentation at the Society for Applied Anthropology. Clarence and David were in sync - bouncing ideas off of each other, productively helping Sylvia re-conceptualize her paper. Elizabeth provided a developmental perspective to the conversation. She helped capture the sense of "going against the tide" and changing professional culture in medical school. Gabe crystallized the imagery with the recommendation that the intervention be characterized as an "injection of humanism." It was a extraordinarily generative session.

2008-03-18T23:50:00.000-07:00

Stanford Medical Education Research Group - Room Schedule.

Med Ed Research Group Schedule Spring Quarter

We will be meeting in our regular Redwood Bld 138B this Thursday 3/20. Sylvia will be sharing her ethnographic proposal with us.

We will be meeting in CCSR 4205 during spring quarter:

April 3 (Dr. Dave Irby - guest speaker), 10, and 17
May 1, 8, 15, and 22
June 5, 12, 19

Journal Club

We will meet in room M-114 on

April 24 from 12-1
May 29 from 12-1
June 26 from 12-1

Take care and welcome to spring quarter.

- David

2008-02-14T13:14:00.001-08:00

Proposal Deadlines, Upcoming Meetings, and Journal Club. Today's meeting highlighted upcoming deadlines including: AAMC, AEA, and JAMA. They are listed below:

Feb 22 AAMC RIME
Mar 1 JAMA Education Articles
Mar 21 AAMC Small Group
Mar 21 AAMC Workshops
Mar 14 AEA All Areas

Upcoming Professional Meetings include:

March 23-28 American Educational Research Association NYC
April 9 American Psychological Association - Soc Instrustrial and Org Psychol SF
April 27-30 WGEA Asilomar
Oct/Nov 31-5 Association of Americ Med Colleges San Antonio, TX
Nov 5-8 American Evaluation Association Denver, CO

There were a large number of acceptances (posters, oral presentations, and panels) concerning the upcoming WGEA conference in Asilomar. They will be listed on the blog in the next couple of weeks.

2008-02-03T00:08:00.000-08:00

Welcome to 2008! Yohko Murakami presented the Stanford University Minority Medical Alliance Conference Survey to the group. The group provided constructive feedback in a timely manner. The survey was revised based on the input and deployed.

Click on Image Above to Download Poster

The discussion was animated. Drs. Gabriel Garcia and Kenneth Vosti provided instrumental insights.

We agreed to keep as many of our meetings as open as possible to facilitate discussion and exploration and maintain our informal learning atmosphere. However, our next meetings will include talks from statisticians and related research methodologists. Dr. David Irby, UCSF, has agreed to speak to the group in April.

2007-12-19T17:33:00.000-08:00

Happy Holidays! As we bring another year to a close, it is important to reflect on our accomplishments. We have generated new research ideas, provided constructive, collegial feedback, and presented papers and workshops at professional meetings, including the Association of American Medical Colleges and the American Evaluation Association. We have invited speakers, including the editor of MedEdPortal. Many of us have published our work in various journals and books during the year and have plans to continue our scholarly efforts into the next year.

Speaking of plans, we have the following activities on the agenda for next year:

1. preparing to present our successful WGEA proposals (Asilomar - April 27-30)
2. planning for an annual Medical Education Research & Evaluation Conference
3. reviving the Journal Club (4th Thursday of the month from 12-1 in CCSR 4105)
4. continuing our Thur 10:15-11:45 weekly meeting (now held in Redwood T138B)
- January 10 is our first meeting of the year (with Yohko presenting)
5. preparing for our next round of AAMC and AEA proposals (February, April, March)
6. publishing our work
7. pursuing funding streams to support our work

Mostly, however, we have built a vibrant research group and look forward to starting up again in the new year.

Here is the schedule for the new year:

Summary:

Medical Education Research and Evaluation Group
Thur 10:15 to 11:45 (first 3 weeks of each month & 4th if there are 5 Thursdays in the month)
Redwood T138B

Journal Club
Thur 12-1 (typically 4th Thur of the month) CSSR 4105
Jan 24 12-1
Feb 28 12-1
Mar 27 12-1

Happy Holidays!

2007-11-30T23:46:00.000-08:00

Guest Presenter James Priest. The focus of this weeks session was on a study of rounds. The study will be conducted at Stanford and the University of Washington.

James presented a clear picture of his planned study. Medical education research and evaluation members provided a useful critique.

Neil helped identify critical variables to consider. Clarence recommended a formula for analyzing the data.

The second half of the session focused on the introduction of new survey questions for the quarterly e*Value course evaluations. A few of the added questions focus on attendance and stress. These questions have implications for the design and implementation of the curriculum. The decision to change the existing survey had philosophical implications.

There are two philosophical camps associated with changes in evaluation machinery (survey questions): the traditionalists and modernist. The traditionalist holds on to the past because it has worked. There is merit in this position because it ensures that the same questions are posed over time - allowing us to track change over time. The modernist understands the importance of changing existing traditions or survey questions to reflect changes in the curriculum. The modernist keeps the evaluation system alive and relevant to stakeholders. The current philosophical position adopted is a combination of both traditions - keeping most of the key questions to allow for long term comparisons, asking some questions annually instead of quarterly (since they were not high yield questions), and replace some questions with completely new ones to reflect current changes and test current questions.

The session like most was engaging and productive.

2007-10-21T01:53:00.001-07:00

AAMC Presentation. Neil, Jen, and David presented their mini-workshop for the Association of American Medical Colleges' presentation. It is titled, Empowerment Evaluation: A Collaborative Model for Evaluating Medical School Curriculum and Enaging Accreditation Standards.

The opportunity to practice this workshop was invaluable. The group provided useful advice, ranging from trimming down the student comments in the package to adding more detail about the "limbs on the evaluation tree."

The laminated cards, highlighting the empowerment evaluation concepts we want workshop participants to use, were a "hit."

As you can see from the picture above, they finally got me. I am the one who typically takes pictures of everyone for the blog. This time, turn-around was fair play. (I should note these pictures are used to help us record our efforts throughout the year.)

We are all getting close the actual conference presentations at the AAMC and also at the American Evaluation Association, thus the marathon of mock presentations to prepare for the actual events in early November (November 2-7 at AAMC and November 7-11 at AEA).

2007-10-04T15:06:00.000-07:00

International Speaker. Maria, from the Karolinska Institute in Sweden, spoke today. The focus of her talk was on the accuracy of student self-assessment. The findings were powerful (almost statistically significant after running a two-tailed T test).

The second speaker was Sylvia from Stanford. The focus of her talk was on "Fostering Compliance of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act: An Educational Program."

Both presentations invited comments and a critical eye. The group immediately launched into both talks with insightful comments designed to better understand the concepts presented and to help the presenter improve their research and presentation.
As usual the conversation went past the designated hour and into the lunch zone.

2007-09-23T15:56:00.000-07:00

Dr. Chris Candler: AAMC MedEdPORTAL editor. Dr. Candler was our first Journal Club speaker of the year. The Medical Education Research and Evaluation Group, meets every Thursday from 10:15 to 11:45. However, they set the last Thursday of the month aside from 12-1 for guest speakers.

Dr. Clarence Braddock, Associate Dean of Medical Education, welcomed our guest and set the tone for the presentation.

Dr. David Fetterman introduced the Dr. Candler mentioning that he was Associate Dean at the University of Oklahoma before moving to the AAMC. He was also co-director of HEAL. (Dr. Candler's presentation was recorded for those unable to attend.)

Dr. Candler spoke about role of education scholarship and how it should be evaluated. His work builds on the Carnegie Foundation's commitment to the scholarship of teaching.

Dr. Candler provided the group with both an historical context for the scholarship of teaching and some of the latest thinking on the topic. In addition, he demonstrated how MedEdPORTAL is a powerful conduit for publishing in this area, particularly given it is a refereed online journal.

Dr. Candler's presentation stimulated a lively discussion.

There was even speculation about documenting (and in this case analyzing "chunked and coded" video recordings of) teaching as a form of scholarship.

The discussion after the session was also extremely productive. New publication ideas were generated, which were particularly meaningful and relevant given that the ideas were generated with the editor of the journal present.

Colleagues in attendance came from SUMMIT, clerkships, courses, standardized patient programs, evaluation, and various fellowships and residencies.

By way of background, Drs. Braddock, Candler, and Fetterman met with Dr. David Stevenson, Senior Associate Dean for Faculty Affairs before Dr. Candler's presentation. The focus was on the importance of education research and MedEdPORTAL as a vehicle to contribute to that literature. More to the point, the discussion revolved around the legitimacy of this kind of scholarship and need to ensure that A&P committees understand and value the scholarship of teaching.

Dr. Stevenson assured Drs. Braddock and Fetterman that he would bring this to all of the A&P committees and Dean Pizzo as well.

Dr. Fetterman concluded Dr. Candler's visit with a brief tour of the campus including the Rodin sculptures and returning full circle at the Clark Center.

2007-09-23T15:24:00.000-07:00

Mock Presentations. The next couple of months are booked up with practice sessions, in preparation for our professional association meeting presentations. Two of the more pressing deadlines are for the AAMC and AEA in November.

The September 20th session focused on the AEA session titled, "Using Empowerment Evaluation to Facilitate Organizational Transformation: A Stanford University Medical Center Case Example." The focus is both on the method of empowerment evaluation and crossing boundaries across the medical school curriculum and the hospital, in order to provide a coherent and consistent educational message. (Often students have to "unlearn" what they learned in medical school once they begin their residencies. The aim of our overall effort is to reinforce what was learned throughout the entire educational experience.)

The critique was friendly but focused and extremely helpful. The process was engaging - we did not even notice the time go by. (Speaking of time, look at that clock in the picture on the left top of the screen. How may meetings do you go to that run over well into lunch and folks are still completely absorbed and refining their insights and ideas?)

To best use the group's time for critique, the panel meet before the research meeting to solidify their ideas concerning the themes they wanted to highlight for their session.

2007-09-18T09:37:00.001-07:00

MedEdPORTAL. Dr. Chris Candler, the editor of the AAMC's online journal, will be speaking in the School of Medicine on September 21, 2007. The topic will be: "What is Education Scholarship and How Should it Be Evaluated?"

This presentation conforms to the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement on Teaching's commitment to scholarship on teaching. According to the Foundation: “The scholarship of teaching must not be confused with ongoing study of one's discipline, which is expected of all faculty. This specialized scholarship, which only some faculty will pursue, involves sustained inquiry into teaching practices and students' learning in ways that allow other educators to build on one's findings. Scholarship of teaching is directed toward other teachers, in one's field and beyond.”

The talk will be located in the Clark Center Room 361. This invited speaker is endorsed by Dean's Pizzo, Stevenson, Prober, Braddock, and Curet. The event is sponsored by the Office of Medical Education, the Division of Evaluation, and the Medical Education and Evaluation Research Group. Contact Dr. David Fetterman, Director of Evaluation, for details concerning the event. (Lunch will be provided and the talk will be taped in case you are unable to attend.)

2007-09-12T23:39:00.001-07:00

MedEdPORTAL Submissions. Dr. Nevins requested feedback on his plans to submit a series of MedEdPORTAL submissions at our September 6, 2007 research and evaluation meeting. He provided an LCD presentation concerning his planned submissions. In the process, his presentation became transformed into a group review and critique. It was engaging and productive.

Many of the group's recommended changes were made on screen in front of the group. It was quite empowering because the recommended changes were made in real time and in front of the group.

This presentation was also an excellent demonstration of how the group provides feedback on work in progress. In addition, the discussion helped make the transition to a discussion about education scholarship and the upcoming visit by Dr. Chris Candler, the editor of MedEdPORTAL. The talk will be in the School of Medicine on September 21, 2007. It will be held in the Clark Center from 12:00 to 1:00 in room 361.

2007-08-23T13:59:00.001-07:00

Dr. Heather Davidson. Heather's focus is on Graduate Medical Education. She is from Stanford University Hospital. She provided a thought provoking presentation, based on a survey of house staff.

The group provided rich feedback on her presentation, ranging from substantive sample issues to format and presentation.

One of the novel ideas that emerged toward the end of the presentation was to present the data in reverse like a photographic negative. Instead of focusing on the negative - the exact opposite or mirror image could be highlighted. It caught everyone's attention and embodied the empowerment evaluation principles of participation, improvement, and democratic participation.

The discussion was so engaging it spilled over into lunch time as refinements and additional ideas emerged. Please contact Heather for additional details about the study.

(See clock 12:12.)

2007-08-16T20:44:00.001-07:00

Training for Standardized Patient-Interpreter Cases: A How-To Guide for Consistent and Reliable Results. Sylvia Bereknyei presented her preliminary findings concerning four checklists used in training standardized patients (Standardized Interpreter, Standardized Patient, Observer, and the validation checklist). They showed high internal consistency using Cronbach's alpha, scales ranging from 0.77 to 0.94. The checklists have good scale and item consistency. Additional analysis will include normal distribution of scores per item as well as by rater for each checklist. The findings suggest that the Standardized Patient Program for POM Q3 2007 LEP case used an effective training program to evaluate MS1 student performance on communication skills and effective interpreter used during a standardized encounter.

Contact Sylvia for additional details.

2007-07-26T17:29:00.000-07:00

Evaluating a Standardized Patient Exercise . Dr. Elizabeth Stuart presented her standardized patient exercise in Pediatrics. It is relatively unique because it also relies on student/peer assessment. The focus on the patient's perspective was also unusual and important. The discussion was lively and helpful. Suggestions were made concerning how best to draft initial insights, mine the existing data for additional findings, and plan for future studies. Contact Dr. Stuart for more information and details about the study.

Sylvia and Jen expanded the discussion, sharing insights about their work with an eye toward helping Dr. Stuart refine her questions.

2007-06-22T16:58:00.001-07:00

PubMed, OVID, EndNotes, and Zoomerang. Clarence Braddock demonstrated the search capacities of various web-based tools and databases including PubMed and OVID.

Neil Gesundheit followed up on his demonstration with a presentation about EndNotes.

David Fetterman concluded the digital day will a demonstration of Zoomerang (online survey program).

He also discussed the preliminary findings of the Residency Director's Assessment of our Alumni (PGY-1).

The presentations generated a few new research ideas that we plan to pursue (as well as ways to find literature about those topics).

2007-06-04T15:52:00.000-07:00

Medical Education Journals. We have shared ideas, which led to or refined existing research agendas. It was only logical that we would move to the next step: publication. A few of us have already published some of our medical education related studies and work.

In addition, we have received presentations about MedEdPortal and anticipate hearing from the editor of that online journal in September. We are currently collecting information about relevant journals for the dissemination of our work. A preliminary list has been presented below to facilitate the publication of our ideas and work.

Academic Medicine
(Two articles of current issue are available online and all articles from Jan. 1, 2000 - Dec 31, 2000. Print copies are available in the Library of Rush University Medical Center.)
http://www.academicmedicine.org/
Advances in Health Sciences Education
(Not in the Library of Rush University Medical Center.)
http://kapis.www.wkap.nl/kapis/CGI-BIN/WORLD/journalhome.htm?1382-4996

British Medical Journal (BMJ)
(Available online through the Library of Rush University Medical Center from 1993 on.)
http://bmj.bmjjournals.com

Canadian Medical Association Journal (CMAJ)
(Available online through the Library of Rush University Medical Center from 1993 on.)
http://www.cmaj.ca/

The Clinical Teacher
(Available online through the Library of Rush University Medical Center.)
http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/servlet/useragent?func=showIssues&code=tct

Education for Health
(Not in the Library of Rush University Medical Center.)
http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals/frameloader.html?http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals/carfax/13576283.html

Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA)
(Available online through the Library of Rush University Medical Center.)
http://pubs.ama-assn.org/

Journal of Continuing Education in the Health Professions
(Not in the Library of Rush University Medical Center.)
http://www.jcehp.com/

Medical Education
(Available online through the Library of Rush University Medical Center.)
http://www.blacksci.co.uk/~cgilib/jnlpage.asp?Journal=meded&File=meded&Page=aims

Medical Teacher
(Available online through the Library of Rush University Medical Center.)
http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals/titles/0142159X.html

Teaching and Learning in Medicine
(Available in print at the Library of Rush University Medical Center from 1989-January 2001 only).
http://edaff.siumed.edu/tlm/

Free sites:

FreeMedicalJournals.Com is dedicated to the promotion of free access to medical journals over the Internet. It currently has 1380 Journals in several languages available through this portal.

HighWire Press is the largest archive of free full-text science on Earth! As of 10/15/04, they are assisting in the online publication of 770,015 free full-text articles and 1,972,541 total articles.

Public Library of Science is one of several initiatives that promote open access to scientific and medical literature. They have launched a nonprofit scientific publishing venture that will provide scientists with high-quality, high-profile journals in which to publish their most important work, while making the full contents freely available for anyone to read, distribute or use for their own research.

PubMed Central is a digital archive of life sciences journal literature developed and managed by the National Center for Biotechnology Information at the U.S. National Library of Medicine (NLM). NLM is taking the lead in preserving and maintaining unrestricted access to the electronic literature. PubMed Central aims to fill the role of a world class library in the digital age. It is not a journal publisher. NLM believes that giving all users free and unrestricted access to the material in PubMed Central is the best way to ensure the durability and utility of the archive as technology changes over time. Their full list of journals in the database is located at http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/front-page/fp.fcgi , including BMC Medical Education (http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/tocrender.fcgi?journal=38&action=archive)

BMJ Collection of Articles about Learning and Teaching in Medicine
(Over sixty articles which focus on a variety of aspects of teaching and evaluation)
http://bmj.com/cgi/collection/teaching
BMJ Collection of Articles about Postgraduate Learning and Teaching
(Only ten articles appear in this collection so far.)
http://bmj.com/cgi/collection/postgraduate

BMJ Collection of Articles about Undergraduate Learning and Teaching
(Over 160 articles.)
http://bmj.com/cgi/collection/undergrad

Office-based teaching (Family Medicine)
(These columns appear regularly in the journal Family Medicine. This site has gathered columns 1996 to the present. The columns cover a variety of aspects of teaching medical students in community-based settings.)
http://www.stfm.org/teacher/hub.html

TIME (Topics in Medical Education)
http://www.dundee.ac.uk/meded/refs/

TIME covers the subject of medical education. The database currently contains almost 50,000 items collected over the past two decades by the Director of the Centre for Medical Education at Dundee, RM Harden. The references cover a range of topics in: healthcare professional education, in health education and in patient education. Journals include: medical education, general education, specialized areas of education, medicine and medical specialties. There is a range of magazines and newsletters—and even some material from newspapers.

Stanford Faculty Development Center Literature Databases

Each of Stanford's faculty development programs has a literature database saved as a bibliographic database file, managed by EndNote (which include citations for articles, books, and other publications). The databases are not intended to serve as comprehensive reviews of the literature, but rather as sources of relevant supplemental readings. The available databases include: clinical teaching, professionalism in contemporary practice, end-of-life care, and geriatrics in primary care.
http://www.stanford.edu/group/SFDP/sfdc_lit_data.html
Annotated bibliography of books on medical education in the Library of Rush University Medical Center
(prepared by David Barnett, Ph.D., Office of Medical Student Programs, Rush Medical College) (a PDF file)

2007-05-10T16:05:00.000-07:00

MedEdPORTAL

The Medical Education Research and Evaluation Group came to a consensus today concerning next year's agenda. One of the primary activities that we will focus on as a group is publishing.

We have invited, Chris Candler, MD, the MedEdPortal editor, to speak to us about publishing our work in this medium. MedEdPortal is a new online publishing venue provided by the Association of American Medical Colleges. We plan on opening up his talk to Clinical Educators throughout the Medical Center. We have provided his contact information below:

Division of Medical Education
2450 N Street, NW
Washington, DC

Email: ccandler@aamc.org
Phone:

Senior Associate Dean, Dr. Charles Prober has endorsed this idea and will participate in the presentation. In addition, Dr. Braddock with ask Dr. Candler to provide an overview about MedEdPORTAL to Chairs and/or A&P committees, with the goal of helping academics understand how to evaluate education scholarship.

We will keep you posted as soon as a date is set for his presentation and demonstration.

2007-05-05T01:28:00.000-07:00

Medical Education Meeting Room Change

We have changed our meeting room. Please make a note of it. Our new meeting room will be in CCSR, Room 0247, every Thursday from 10:15 am -11:45 pm starting 5/10 until 8/30/07 A map has been provided to be of assistance.

2007-03-09T15:10:00.000-08:00

Evaluation & Research Exchanges: Lively, Engaging, and Productive

The last few evaluation and research meetings have been intellectually engaging and useful. Drs. Gesundheit and Nevins participated in an animated discussion about how best to visually present the data. The graphic display concerning performance correlates associated with student self-assessment was compelling.

CURRENT DEADLINES:

American Evaluation Association - March 15 (submit proposals). Meetings will be held in Baltimore, November 7-10. Dr. Fetterman will conduct an empowerment evaluation workshop on November 6 at the pre-conference.

American Association of Medical Colleges - April 9 (submit workshop and discussion sessions). Meetings will be held in Washington, D.C., November 2-7.

The Western Group on Educational Affairs (WGEA) meetings are in Honolulu, Hawaii from April 15-17.

2007-01-12T11:50:00.000-08:00

Room Schedule for Winter Quarter

Mark your calendars. Here is our room schedule for our Medical Education Research and Evaluation Group Meetings:

Redwood T138B

Jan 18 Jan 25 Feb 1 Feb 15 Feb 22 March 1 March 15 March 22 March 29

MSOB x303

Feb 8 March 8

The room will need to be confirmed again in Spring (and Quarter by Quarter) but I am working on that right now. Take care.

- David

2006-11-16T12:52:00.000-08:00

The Medical Education Research Group presented at the American Evaluation Association in Portland, November 2006. The symposium was titled: Empowerment Evaluation in the School of Medicine at Stanford University. Panel members included: Ms. Arnall, Ms. Berry, Dr. Fetterman, Mr. Grant, Ms. Hooper, and Dr. Nevins. A brief video of the presentation is presented on the left side of this message (click on the image). Please contact Dr. Fetterman if you have an questions or would like more information about the presentations.

2006-10-13T09:32:00.000-07:00

El Colegio de Postgraduados, Mexico

We are conducting an empowerment evaluation at Colegio de Postgraduados. We have completed the mission, taking stock, and part of the planning for the future activities.

We enjoy working in collaboration with the Stanford Research Group. We will be happy to share information as we continue in our research and evaluation explorations.

We would be happy to be mentioned in your American Evaluation Association meeting presentations at the end of the month. Please feel free to contact us for additional detail.

2006-10-03T10:54:00.000-07:00

I'm planning on submitting something for WGEA on the cultural competence curriculum assessment; description of methods and results. Either the PCP program component and/or the medical student one. Details to follow.

2006-09-19T22:42:00.000-07:00

2007 WGEA Regional Conference Hawaii

The Association of American Medical Colleges' Western Group on Educational Affairs invites you to participate in this year's exciting and stimulating medical education conference, held jointly at the spectacular new University of Hawaii John A. Burns School of Medicine Kaka'ako Campus, and the Marriott Waikiki Beach Resort and Spa, on April 15-17, 2007. This year's program will focus on "Hot Topics" that represent emerging curricular and educational challenges and opportunities in undergraduate, graduate, and continuing medical education.

Medical school faculty members, administrators, medical students and resident physicians are encouraged to submit abstracts that describe innovative ways of addressing emerging and challenging issues in medical education. Outstanding presentations of educational innovation and scholarship will be recognized with the WGEA Award for Excellence. Presentation options include workshops, panel presentations, posters, and oral presentations of great teaching ideas or educational research. Deadline for submission is NOVEMBER 15, 2006.

Please visit the 2007 WGEA conference website at http://ome.hawaii.edu/wgea2007.htm for more information.

A Collaborative: The Stanford Medical Education Research Group

Annotated bibliography of books on medical education in the Library of Rush University Medical Center(prepared by David Barnett, Ph.D., Office of Medical Student Programs, Rush Medical College) (a PDF file)

Annotated bibliography of books on medical education in the Library of Rush University Medical Center
(prepared by David Barnett, Ph.D., Office of Medical Student Programs, Rush Medical College) (a PDF file)