Medical students (N=284) from four Northeastern medical schools interacted with standardized patients, then were given a free-response form (blank form for writing diagnostic impressions) and then they completed a cued-response form, which listed a series of diagnoses generated by the case author. The patients also completed a checklist. (MLW)

The extent that order effects in multiple-station clinical examinations are prevalent is addressed and an analysis of individual student score profiles pertaining to order effects is included. A clinical skills examination using standardized patients was administered to 157 medical students at the University of Illinois College of Medicine at…

A study systematically reviewed published literature on graduate medical-education curricula in clinical epidemiology, critical appraisal, and evidence-based medicine (EBM). The 18 reports found in the search provide useful guidelines for medical educators but many suffer from incomplete descriptions and inadequate curriculum evaluations.…

Over 18 months, Medical College of Wisconsin students identified what they had learned during their clerkships in each of seven learning settings; the 3,030 outcomes were divided into 48 categories, and the ten most-frequent learning outcomes are reported. No significant differences by time of year or rural vs. urban clerkships were found.…

Provides a description and preliminary evaluation of the CyberDoc program at the MCP-Hanhemann School of Medicine of the Allegheny University of the Health Sciences (Pennsylvania). The program allows faculty to track students' progress at off-site clerkships and allowed students to access a variety of databases, electronic mail, and other…

The use of microcomputers with programmable database software and document scanners has given the medical education community the necessary technology to manage and operate a patient-encounter log system. A clinical encounter and reporting system at the University of Arizona is described. (MLW)

To meet the medical care crisis caused by returning World War II veterans, the Veterans Administration entered into affiliations with medical schools, a partnership that provided physicians for veterans and allowed residents to complete graduate medical education. (Author/MLW)

Hewlett-Packard Corporation grant enabled Harvard Medical School to begin using computer technology in medical educational applications. Hardware and software selection, integration into the curriculum, teaching the use of computers, cost, successful applications, knowledge base access, simulations, video and graphics teaching programs, and…

A study investigated changes in medical students' attitudes toward homosexuality following midyear freshman exposure to a panel presentation and after psychiatry clerkship. Group attitudes of three consecutive medical school classes were consistent, beginning and largely remaining in the "low-grade homophobic" category. An ongoing forum to explore…

A study of grading of 375 third-year medical students and their 121 preceptors after a required 1-month ambulatory care clerkship examined patterns in student gender, preceptor gender, and student-preceptor gender pairs. Results indicate female students received higher clinical grades, especially when the preceptor was male. (Author/MSE)

Data on 997 medical students' attitudes before and after a required 6-week clerkship in family medicine, compared with specialty match data, found that the clerkship had the effects of both value indoctrination and value clarification for students. This effect appeared to persist throughout the third and fourth years. (Author/MSE)

What is needed in graduate medical education is a curriculum built around learning experiences and valued activities, not performance objectives. The example of a curriculum for an ambulatory care block rotation illustrates the development of such a curriculum and how it can be used to frame the rotation experience. (MSE)

A popular required family medicine clerkship at Jefferson Medical College (Pennsylvania) suggests that ambulatory care can be taught as a core component of the clinical curriculum. Success requires strong institutional support, structured curriculum, adequate patients, dedicated faculty, sufficient training sites, an appropriate evaluation…

Analysis of data from 53 medical students found a gender-specific correlation between faculty evaluations of clinical clerkships and eventual female student choice of that rotation's specialty and between high mini-Board scores by male students and male selection of that specialty. Substantially more women chose pediatrics residencies than…

At the end of their clinical clerkship rotations, all students in one medical school's classes of 1988 (N=69), 1989 (N=63), 1990 (N=66) took the Post-Clerkship Examination. This study examined the nature of the patients' satisfaction ratings; reliability of patient satisfaction ratings and number of patients needed to derive reliable ratings; etc.…