Professional achievements in medicine: Too many unresolved questions. (original) (raw)
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Achievement goals of medical students and physicians
Educational Research and Reviews, 2018
In achievement settings, the types of motivation individuals develop are crucial to their success and to the ways in which they respond to challenges. Considering the competitive nature of medical education and the high stakes of medical practice, it is important to know what types of motivation (conceptualized here as achievement goals) medical students and physicians adopt and how these may differ depending on the nuances of their achievement settings. This is a cross-sectional survey study of medical students (N=200) and practicing physicians (N=202). The online questionnaire included measures of achievement goals (performance approach, performance avoidance, mastery approach, mastery avoidance) and background characteristics. Multivariate analysis of variance was used to examine differences in achievement goals of medical students and physicians. Education/career stage, medical specialty, and practice type were used as factors in the analyses. Despite the differences in achievement settings, striking similarities in the achievement goals among medical students and physicians were observed in this study. Both students and physicians were most likely to endorse mastery approach goals (the most adaptive type of motivation) and least likely to endorse performance avoidance goals (the least adaptive type of motivation). Significant differences were observed in mastery approach goals of students and physicians, depending on education/career stage. With respect to medical specialty, although distinct patterns in achievement goals emerged in the student and physician data, the observed differences were not statistically significant. Academic physicians had higher levels of performance goals than community-based physicians. Medical students and physicians thus self-reported themselves as highly mastery approach-oriented; nevertheless, our findings suggest that these goals are more prone to fluctuations than other achievement goals, depending on the stage of one's education/career. The results largely show that medical students and physicians endorse achievement goals that are beneficial for lifelong learning, well-being, and success.
Good Student or Good Physician: What Are We Encouraging?
A study based on student and faculty opinions is presented. It examines how well two types of preclinical curricula are preparing students to become competent physicians. Research questions include: how effective do students perceive their educational activities in two different preclinical curricula to be in helping them to pass their exams and become good physicians; how congruent are educational activities of preclinical students with student perceptions of activities leading to physician competence; and how congruent are the perceptions of students compared to those of their faculty. Preclinical students and faculty from a private midwestern American medical school participated. Responses were gathered from one class of traditional curriculum students and from one class of problem based learning students. Students were asked to indicate how often in the past year they had used each of the different study resources listed for them and to rate a series of educational activities by...
Frontiers in Psychology, 2013
Background: In medical education, evaluation of clinical performance is based almost universally on rating scales for defined aspects of performance and scores on examinations and checklists. Unfortunately, scores and grades do not capture progress and competence among learners in the complex tasks and roles required to practice medicine. While the literature suggests serious problems with the validity and reliability of ratings of clinical performance based on numerical scores, the critical issue is not that judgments about what is observed vary from rater to rater but that these judgments are lost when translated into numbers on a scale. As the Next Accreditation System of the Accreditation Council on Graduate Medical Education (ACGME) takes effect, medical educators have an opportunity to create new processes of evaluation to document and facilitate progress of medical learners in the required areas of competence.
Exploring the Learning Curve in Medical Education: Using Self-Assessment as a Measure of Learning
Academic Medicine, 2008
Background Learning is a complex process that follows predictable patterns. The authors explored whether students' selfassessment of competencies could be used as a measure of learning within medical school. Method Medical students (all grade levels) rated their achievement of competencies at the beginning and end of an academic year. Repeated-measures ANOVA and 2 were used to determine differences. Results Five hundred thirty-three students participated (response rate ϭ 79.3%). Self-assessment ratings between four grade levels were significant (P Ͻ .001, 2 ϭ 0.33), with the steepest difference between MS2 and MS3; professionalism ratings remained relatively stable. The largest percent increase within an academic year occurred between MS1 and MS2, with little increase within MS3 and MS4. Conclusions Medical students' self-assessment ratings of competencies indicated differences between grade levels and during an academic year, following a sigmoidal curve. These results have implications for medical education and indicate the need to develop longitudinal measures to track changes in learning.
The ASPIRE-to-Excellence Program: A Global Effort to Improve the Quality of Medical Education
Academic medicine : journal of the Association of American Medical Colleges, 2017
Publications and organizations ranking medical schools rely heavily on schools' research-oriented and grant-success data because those are the publicly available data. To address the vacuum of evidence for medical education quality, in 2012 the Association of Education in Europe (AMEE) introduced an initiative entitled A Schools Programme for International Recognition of Excellence in Education (ASPIRE) awards. ASPIRE panels of international experts in specific areas of medical education have developed internationally peer-based criteria to benchmark excellence in social accountability, student engagement, student assessment, faculty development, and simulation; they plan to publish criteria on curriculum design and development in 2018. Schools are encouraged to use ASPIRE criteria to challenge themselves and, for a fee, may submit evidence that they have met the criteria for excellence in one or more of the five areas. The international panels then judge the evidence submitted ...
International Journal of Medical Education
Objectives: To evaluate the association between the achievements of medical students and whether they were admitted via the pre-medical track or the regular direct track. Methods: We performed a comparative retrospective data study using data from a three-year experimental cohort in a six-year medical school. We analyzed the academic achievements of all students admitted at one Israeli medical school between 2013-2015, either directly to the six-year program or via a pre-medical track. We compared averages of both yearly final grades and final medical examinations grades between the two groups. Descriptive statistics were calculated and differences between groups were evaluated using multivariate analysis. Results: Of the 324 students included in the study, 65 (20.1%) were enrolled in all three cohorts of the pre-medical track. Age and Gender distribution were nearly similar for both tracks. For the first two cohorts, the average final grades of year one of pre-medical students were significantly higher than those of regular direct track (F=(3,167) 6.10, p=0.001), but the opposite was true for the third cohort (F=(3,110)2.38, p=0.073). No further statistically significant differences were found neither between the groups in their final exams grades nor between choosing a MD/PhD optional track and admission pathway. Conclusions: Our results suggest promising achievements with the pre-medical admission pathway. This should encourage further discussion about the significant potential human resources lost by current admission processes and may question the effectiveness of six-year programs in medical schools.
Medical Students and Faculty Perceptions of Importance of Academic Milestones and Markers
1982
Faculty and medical students' conceptions of an Optimal progression toward graduation as, defined by academic and psychosocial' markers were compared. Twenty-four academic indicators of success or difficulty, primarily examination scores or clerkship' t evaluations, and,10 other indicators of progress toward graduation were assessed by 23 faculty and 43 medical students. In general, the. examinakon-related indicators were estimated to have similar 4 ,imperti'nce by the students and the facUlty. Students placed their major emphasis on passing the major examinations,, while faculty gave egual,*value to evidence of academic excellence (e.g,.4 high scores; participation a paper, presenting'one's.own research)', and evidence of loarticiPation in academigt:or professional organizatiOns. It is suggested that these differences' probably rirlect the different career orientations of the facuAty aria students: Greater relative importance was placed.on the negiTiv,e indicators than the poiitive ones: Three items for whiefi, he faculty responded less homogeneously than did students were "atteinpted suicide,". "soughtlpsychiatric. help," and "sought.short-term counseling." Students, perceived these three indicatois more negatively ihandidlaculty. The imppcations for academic advising of students',. career orientfti.on and atitydes ,2toward grades are briefly addressed. Vw) .