Advances in Medical Education – serie

This book challenges functional models for more aesthetic and ethical models, where communication is grounded in values systems of cultures. Here, communication is treated as a distributed phenomenon involving networks of persons, activities and artifacts, and extends beyond doctor-patient relationships to working in and across teams around patients. The purpose of the book is to stimulate thinking about how patient care and safety may be improved through a focus upon the ‘non-technical’ work of doctors – interpersonal communication, teamwork and situation awareness in teams. The focus is then not on the personality of the doctor, but on the dynamics of relationships which form doctors’ multiple identities.

At the center of this book is the complex and perplexing question of how to design professional preparation programs, organizational management practices, public policy systems and robust professional associations committed to and capable of, maintaining confidence, trust and the other hallmarks of responsible professionalism. To do this, we need to rebuild our understanding of professional responsibility from the ground up. We describe how individuals might be prepared to engage in responsible professional service delivery, examine promising options for the reform of professional service systems and finally, outline a reform strategy for improving practice in education and medicine – two essential public services. The nexus of the reform problem in professionalism is establishing a more robust and effective working relationship between teachers and their students; between health care professionals and their patients and between educators and health professionals. Professionalism means acceptance of professional responsibility for student and patient outcomes — not just acceptance of responsibility for technical expertise, but commitment to the social norms of the profession, including trustworthiness and responsibility for client wellbeing. In the past, it may have been sufficient to assume that adequate knowledge can be shaped into standards of professional practice. Today, it is clear that we must take careful account of the ways in which practicing professionals develop, internalize and sustain professionalism during their training, along with the ways in which this commitment to professionalism may be undermined by the regulatory, fiscal, technological, political and emotional incentive systems that impinge on professional workplaces and professional employment systems.

This evidence-packed guide explores the growing importance of new technologies and situated learning in the vanguard of medical and health sciences education, backed by real-world clinical applications. Its dual emphasis on problem-based learning (PBL) and applied learning is reflected in the range of author perspectives, from understanding how technologies engage learners to implications for program design. Innovations covered range from wider and more targeted use of mobile devices and electronic medical records to video cases and virtual patients, in clinical contexts from family practice to specialized surgery. At the same time, chapters detail both the necessary hardware for putting these systems into place and the software needed to make them accessible to learners. Among the featured topics: Technology and group processes in PBL: An ethnographic study.What is real?  Using problem-based learning in virtual worlds.Are Wikipedia articles reliable learning resources in PBL curricula?Utilizing mobile electronic health records in clinical education.Measuring emotions in medicine: methodological and technological advances within authentic medical learning environments.The deteriorating patient smartphone app: towards serious game design. Medical/health sciences educators and researchers in educational technology will look to Educational Technologies in Medical and Health Sciences Education to pinpoint current and future trends in an ever-important field.

This evidence-packed guide explores the growing importance of new technologies and situated learning in the vanguard of medical and health sciences education, backed by real-world clinical applications. Its dual emphasis on problem-based learning (PBL) and applied learning is reflected in the range of author perspectives, from understanding how technologies engage learners to implications for program design. Innovations covered range from wider and more targeted use of mobile devices and electronic medical records to video cases and virtual patients, in clinical contexts from family practice to specialized surgery. At the same time, chapters detail both the necessary hardware for putting these systems into place and the software needed to make them accessible to learners. Among the featured topics: Technology and group processes in PBL: An ethnographic study.What is real?  Using problem-based learning in virtual worlds.Are Wikipedia articles reliable learning resources in PBL curricula?Utilizing mobile electronic health records in clinical education.Measuring emotions in medicine: methodological and technological advances within authentic medical learning environments.The deteriorating patient smartphone app: towards serious game design. Medical/health sciences educators and researchers in educational technology will look to Educational Technologies in Medical and Health Sciences Education to pinpoint current and future trends in an ever-important field.

This book challenges functional models for more aesthetic and ethical models, where communication is grounded in values systems of cultures. Here, communication is treated as a distributed phenomenon involving networks of persons, activities and artifacts, and extends beyond doctor-patient relationships to working in and across teams around patients. The purpose of the book is to stimulate thinking about how patient care and safety may be improved through a focus upon the ‘non-technical’ work of doctors – interpersonal communication, teamwork and situation awareness in teams. The focus is then not on the personality of the doctor, but on the dynamics of relationships which form doctors’ multiple identities.

At the center of this book is the complex and perplexing question of how to design professional preparation programs, organizational management practices, public policy systems and robust professional associations committed to and capable of, maintaining confidence, trust and the other hallmarks of responsible professionalism. To do this, we need to rebuild our understanding of professional responsibility from the ground up. We describe how individuals might be prepared to engage in responsible professional service delivery, examine promising options for the reform of professional service systems and finally, outline a reform strategy for improving practice in education and medicine – two essential public services. The nexus of the reform problem in professionalism is establishing a more robust and effective working relationship between teachers and their students; between health care professionals and their patients and between educators and health professionals. Professionalism means acceptance of professional responsibility for student and patient outcomes — not just acceptance of responsibility for technical expertise, but commitment to the social norms of the profession, including trustworthiness and responsibility for client wellbeing. In the past, it may have been sufficient to assume that adequate knowledge can be shaped into standards of professional practice. Today, it is clear that we must take careful account of the ways in which practicing professionals develop, internalize and sustain professionalism during their training, along with the ways in which this commitment to professionalism may be undermined by the regulatory, fiscal, technological, political and emotional incentive systems that impinge on professional workplaces and professional employment systems.

This book argues that medical education is undergoing a deep transition - a paradigm shift or tipping point. The authors articulate the conditions of possibility for such a shift through examining relationships between power, identity and location.

Surgical Education: Theorising an Emerging Domain delineates surgical (as opposed to medical) education as a new and emerging field of academic enquiry. This reflects profound changes in healthcare training and practice on an international basis. As such, this book introduces, examines and explores the contribution of selected concepts and theories to surgical learning and practice. The first four chapters consider core facets of surgical education, such as simulation, while subsequent chapters take a key idea, often well known in another field, and examine its relevance to surgical education. Of course, performing invasive procedures is no longer the exclusive preserve of ‘traditional’ surgeons. Boundaries between surgery and the interventional specialties (radiology, cardiology, intensive care) are becoming increasingly blurred, especially as technology continues to expand. Changing work patterns and explosive technological development mark this out as a major growth area. New educational approaches (e.g. the use of simulation) are emerging. And all clinical practice is a team activity, where clinicians from many specialties (medicine, nursing, allied professions) come together with shared goals. For all the above groups, and their patients, education (teaching, training, learning and assessment) is of crucial importance. Yet the unique characteristics of surgical education have not previously been addressed from an educational perspective, nor have its possibilities as a new research domain been mapped. The domain needs to be theorised and its epistemological foundations established. There is thus both a need and a market for a definitive work in this area, aimed at surgeons, other clinicians, non-clinicians, educators, and others interested in this new domain.

The purpose of medical education is to benefit patients by improving the work of doctors. Patient centeredness is a centuries old concept in medicine, but there is still a long way to go before medical education can truly be said to be patient centered. Ensuring the centrality of the patient is a particular challenge during medical education, when students are still forming an identity as trainee doctors, and conservative attitudes towards medicine and education are common amongst medical teachers, making it hard to bring about improvements. How can teachers, policy makers, researchers and doctors bring about lasting change that will restore the patient to the heart of medical education? The authors, experienced medical educators, explore the role of the patient in medical education in terms of identity, power and location. Using innovative political, philosophical, cultural and literary critical frameworks that have previously never been applied so consistently to the field, the authors provide a fundamental reconceptualisation of medical teaching and learning, with an emphasis upon learning at the bedside and in the clinic. They offer a wealth of practical and conceptual insights into the three-way relationship between patients, students and teachers, setting out a radical and exciting approach to a medical education for the future.“The authors provide us with a masterful reconceptualization of medical education that challenges traditional notions about teaching and learning.  The book critiques current practices and offers new approaches to medical education based upon sociocultural research and theory.  This thought provoking narrative advances the case for reform and is a must read for anyone involved in medical education.”  -  David M. Irby, PhD, Vice Dean for Education,University of California, San Francisco School of Medicine; and co-author of Educating Physicians: A Call for Reform of Medical School and Residency"This book is a truly visionary contribution to the Flexner centenary. It is compulsory reading for the medical educationalist with a serious concern for the future - and for the welfare of patients and learners in the here and now." Professor Tim Dornan, University of Manchester Medical School and Maastricht University Graduate School of Health Professions Education.