Medical Science Educator最新文献

Health professionals lack nutrition training. Food insecurity among trainees reduces performance. We aimed to support trainees in eating well on a budget and prepare them for patient encounters through "Shopping for Health," gamified grocery shopping, via Virtual Reality or website. Future work could integrate gamified nutrition education into existing training.

Nutrition receives inadequate attention in medical training and primary care practice, and multiple barriers present challenges to adding nutrition to packed medical curricula and busy patient visits. To address the need to more adequately prepare medical students to practically address diet with patients while also considering these barriers, we implemented a required interprofessional and experiential nutrition curriculum. A prework personal dietary change assignment had positive impacts on students personally and professionally. Following the curriculum, students reported greater confidence discussing diet with patients, greater familiarity with registered dietitian (RD) services, and plans to change their own diet.

Supplementary information: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s40670-025-02431-7.

Public speaking skills are essential for career advancement and success in medicine. This needs assessment evaluated the public speaking challenges faced by medical students and faculty, identifying areas where targeted training can enhance communication skills crucial for medical practice. Size and demographics (e.g., students versus attendings) of the audience population affect public speaking confidence, particularly for students. Both groups prefer practical, interactive learning methods, like workshops and peer practice. Medical schools can integrate training and practice opportunities into existing curricula, ensuring that students still receive essential communication skills development within their current programs.

Supplementary information: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s40670-025-02419-3.

Medical mistakes made while in a state of cognitive fatigue result in diagnostic errors, psychological distress, poor patient outcomes, and potentially, loss of life. To date, cognitive fatigue in health professionals is assessed via self-report; however, the reliability and validity of these measures are often challenged. Here we propose the use of mobile electroencephalography (mEEG) in a medical context as an objective cognitive fatigue assessment that is cost effective, reliable, and efficient. We had medical students complete a simulated night on call during which they diagnosed a series of simulated medical cases. Before and after their shift, we assessed cognitive fatigue using both behavioural and mEEG measures. Our results demonstrate a decrease in the amplitude of a neural response sensitive to cognitive fatigue from the start to the end of the simulated night on call - a finding associated with an increase in cognitive fatigue. Interestingly, we observed no reltionship between the neural response and subjective self-reported cognitive fatigue scores, supporting the need for objective as opposed to subjective measures when asasessing cognitive fatigue.

Anatomy education includes topics that are sensitive to some students due to their ethno-cultural background. Using a Tobii eye-tracker, we assessed the visual attention of New Zealand European (NZE) and Pasifika anatomy students to anatomical images. Pasifika students fixated less on surface anatomy images of the hand, male perineum, and gluteal regions than NZE students. Pasifika students fixated more on plastic model images of the gluteal, foot, and male perineum, as well as on images of the shoulder of human donors than NZE students. Ethnic background may influence the anatomy learning experience.

Health Professionals Education symposium, organized by the Koç Academy of Medical Education Research (KAMER), convened in October 2024 to discuss the evolving role of technology and social accountability in health professions education. The symposium adopted the concept of "healthcare professionals' education" as a unifying framework for synchronizing the training of medical and nursing students within a continuum of holistic healthcare education in low-and-middle income countries. The rationale for the symposium was to call on the dire need to improve healthcare professionals' education to reduce the increasing gap between the global north and global south. The discussion topics involved critical and current issues such as social accountability, health advocacy, and professionalism. Study groups explored aligning education with societal needs, addressing healthcare disparities, and integrating professional values into medical and nursing curricula. Presentations also focused on the integration of technology into healthcare education. Participants examined big data, artificial intelligence, simulation technologies, and digital learning platforms, identifying challenges and opportunities for their implementation. The symposium highlighted the transformative impact of interprofessional education, health advocacy, and technology in shaping socially accountable, patient-centered healthcare systems. Key recommendations included integrating community-oriented curricula, leveraging data-driven strategies for program enhancement, and expanding access to advanced educational technologies. This manuscript summarizes the symposium's conclusions and emphasizes the need to transform healthcare professionals' education in low-and-middle income countries to align with contemporary societal demands and to reduce the disparity gap.

Background: Differential attainment is a phenomenon studied widely, but the reasons for its existence remain relatively unknown. Discriminatory behaviours have been well documented in the medical field, especially in the surgical environment, and have been shown to impact learning. This study explores experiences of students in the surgical environment which they attribute to their protected characteristics and the impact this had on their learning and attainment.

Methods: A mixed methods modified ethnographic approach involving diary study and semi-structured interviewing was used. Data was analysed using thematic analysis with an interpretive approach. An intersectional lens in analysis provided deeper insight into the individualised experiences of students.

Results: Students believed that others' reactions to their protected characteristics impacted how they were perceived and treated. They believed this differential treatment impacted their learning and influenced their future career prospects. Participants were not able to adequately compensate for the impact that discriminatory behaviours had on their learning. They were, however, able to suggest areas of improvement which they believed could improve the learning environment.

Conclusion: Our study demonstrated discrepancies in student experience based not only on their individual protected characteristics but also upon the way these intersect with one another. This resulted in suboptimal learning, suggesting that attitudes of surgical placement staff and student peers require review to improve student experience in the learning environment. The findings of this study have implications for the academic performance of students and also their postgraduate performance and patient safety.

Background: Revisiting fundamental concepts during the post-clerkship phase of medical school promotes integration into clinical medicine. Our course uses evolutionarily derived hematologic adaptations to deepen students' understanding of pathophysiology.

Methods: This week-long curriculum incorporated interactive seminars, laboratory experiments, and off-site activities. Students' perceptions of course value, knowledge, and impact were evaluated using pre-course, immediate post-course, and follow-up Likert surveys. Paired t-tests were used to compare pre- and post-course scores.

Results and discussion: Our course increased students' confidence and sustained interest in hematology. These attitudes persisted into residency. This approach models the use of comparative and experiential methods to enhance hematology education.

Artificial intelligence has been widely used to answer questions in the medical context. This study aimed to evaluate the performance, reliability, and precision of ChatGPT-4.0 in responding to multiple-choice questions (MCQs) previously administered to medical students. We conducted an observational and cross-sectional study to assess the performance of ChatGPT by analyzing its accuracy, examining associations with specific knowledge areas and Bloom's taxonomy levels, assessing the influence of the psychometric properties of the items, and investigating the effect of images on the results. From the eight examinations analyzed, chatbot performance varied from 46.7 to 90.0% on the first attempt, 47.5 to 90% on the second attempt, and 28.3 to 89.2% on the third attempt. The concordance rate varied from 56.2% to 62.0% with Cohen's kappa coefficients ranging from 0.071 to 0.217. On the second and third attempts, basic science had the highest scores (90.0 and 93.3%, respectively), whereas surgery (55.8%) and pediatrics (43.4%) had the lowest scores. In summary, the chatbot demonstrated poor performance that was inferior to its human counterparts in medical examinations and low reliability and precision in answering medical questions.