Objective: Standardized patients are used in teaching medical students and evaluating their clinical skills during the psychiatric clerkship. The purpose of this study was to evaluate whether the addition of a Psychiatry Clinical Standardized Patient Examination (PCX) during the third-year clerkship improved students' performances on the…

Case-based activities are widely proclaimed to enable better learning through allowing students to practice application of concepts in real-life situations. This paper reports an investigation into the learning benefits derived from engaging students in the development of Pharmacy eCases. This is a small scale pilot study. Two student-developers…

Observation of 15 nursing students and 15 clinical supervisors in primary care settings revealed that student learning was holistic and meaningful when patient-oriented approaches were used. However, many settings used task-centered approaches, resulting in fragmented learning. (SK)

Few predoctoral dental students received clinical experience with handicapped patients, and in recent years, dental educators have indicated that a shortage of patients exists. A study examined the extent to which dental schools have incorporated handicapped and medically compromised patients into their predoctoral comprehensive care program. (MLW)

A computer-assisted pharmaceutical laboratory experience requires students to systematically review patient profiles and product availability before judging prescriptions for dispensing. Trial use suggests that the method is as effective as and more efficient than the traditional laboratory. (MSE)

Background and purpose: Data supporting the predictive validity of the medical school admission interview are mixed. This study tested the hypothesis that the admission interview is predictive of interpersonal interactions between medical students and standardized patients. Method: We determined correlations between admission interview scores and…

A course on death and dying offered by the University of Maryland School of Nursing focuses on developing relationships between health care workers and dying people, using actual clients as the vehicle for learning. (Author/EA)

The role of the patient in dental education is examined from several perspectives, including factors influencing the patient population within dental school clinics, the role that patient care plays in schools, and opportunities for attracting and maintaining sufficient patients to provide educational experiences for students. (Author/MLW)

Studies in five senior medical school classes at Southern Illinois University investigated whether using multiple standardized patients to simulate the same case in postclerkship medical student evaluation affects the measure's reliability. Results of three studies show little or no effect on reliability of total, checklist, or written test…

Objective: Childhood and adolescence represent a critical period for the potential initiation of substance use, and thus it is important that child and adolescent psychiatry (CAP) residents learn to screen, assess, refer, and/or treat children and adolescents who have substance abuse diagnoses. Method: The authors conducted a survey by mail of…

Much has been written recently about medical professionalism, about how we define it, and about how to educate our students in this domain. While there seems to be consensus as to what constitutes professionalism, there remains a good deal of uncertainty as to how best to teach students to meet their obligations to their patients, to society, and…

Objective: Universally, clerkship grading is diverse and not standardized. The authors' faculty was troubled by the inability to provide meaningful evaluations, as more than 60% of students received the highest grade. Although a psychiatry clerkship mandate of a faculty-observed student clinical interview existed for several years, the majority of…

The Clinical Learning Center resembles the physician's office, but it depends upon volunteer patients who come there primarily to contribute to the educational program while deriving no medical care. (Editor/PG)

The systematic process followed in establishing a comprehensive curriculum for the eight-week junior pediatric clinical clerkship at the University of Kentucky College of Medicine is described. Included are selection of goals, identification of activities and references, and development of evaluative methods. (LBH)