The benefits of being a near-peer teacher

Background: Near-peer teaching is used in anatomy education because of its benefits to the learner, teacher and faculty. Despite the range of reports focusing on the learner, the advantages for the teacher, which are thought to include communication skills, subject knowledge and employability, are only beginning to be explored. Method: A questionnaire was distributed to the teachers involved in anatomy near-peer teaching at the University of Southampton and Brighton and Sussex Medical School. This questionnaire was designed using 0-10 rating scales to assess teacher perspectives on their level of knowledge, teaching skills and enjoyment of teaching. Free text responses determined the teachers’ motivation and perceived benefits from the teaching. Results: Twenty-eight questionnaires were gathered (54.9% response rate) including 20 from Southampton and 8 from BSMS. Long term knowledge retention and better understanding of the material were rated 8.1 and 7.9 out of 10 respectively. Eight responses were from currently practising doctors, who rated how much they now use their teaching skills as doctors as 8.9 out of 10. Of the 8 doctors, 7 gained points for their foundation programme applications as a direct result of near-peer teaching. The most common motivator for engaging in teaching was to improve subject matter knowledge and the most common benefit was improved communication skills. Discussion: There are numerous advantages to being a near-peer teacher in medical school, which include knowledge improvement, transferrable professional skills and employability. These initial results support the hypothesised benefits to the teachers and provide a foundation for further longitudinal studies

Identifying medical student perceptions on the difficulty of learning different topics of the undergraduate anatomy curriculum

Anatomy education research has identified neuroanatomy and pelvic anatomy as particularly challenging to medical students. However, perceptions of the whole undergraduate anatomy curriculum have not been properly determined. One hundred eighty-five second year medical student evaluations showed that neuroanatomy and head and neck and pelvic anatomy were rated significantly harder than the remainder of the curriculum (p &lt; 0.0001). However, students at the National Undergraduate Neuroanatomy Competition did not rate neuroanatomy harder than the other subjects. This study identifies topics which are perceived to be the most difficult to learn and targeting these will make the biggest differences in medical student learning experience.</p

Ten considerations for implementing effective and sustainable near-peer teaching in clinical anatomy education

This article was migrated. The article was marked as recommended.Near-peer teaching (NPT) is becoming increasing popular in medical education. The rationale and benefits of introducing such programs have been well documented and are usually described in terms of their advantages to the teacher, students and faculty. As a team that have successfully introduced two NPT anatomy programs in the last six years at the University of Southampton, we have taken a largely evidenced based approach in offering 10 considerations to ensure the implementation of a sustainable and effective NPT program in anatomical sciences. We have highlighted important aspects of NPT that will help maximise the benefit of such programs and emphasised particular areas where careful thought is necessary. We conclude that to safeguard sustainability and consistency of any given NPT program, faculty and student partnership is required, as is the maintenance of quality control and evaluative techniques

Evaluation of prognostic risk models for postoperative pulmonary complications in adult patients undergoing major abdominal surgery: a systematic review and international external validation cohort study

Background Stratifying risk of postoperative pulmonary complications after major abdominal surgery allows clinicians to modify risk through targeted interventions and enhanced monitoring. In this study, we aimed to identify and validate prognostic models against a new consensus definition of postoperative pulmonary complications. Methods We did a systematic review and international external validation cohort study. The systematic review was done in accordance with the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses guidelines. We searched MEDLINE and Embase on March 1, 2020, for articles published in English that reported on risk prediction models for postoperative pulmonary complications following abdominal surgery. External validation of existing models was done within a prospective international cohort study of adult patients (≥18 years) undergoing major abdominal surgery. Data were collected between Jan 1, 2019, and April 30, 2019, in the UK, Ireland, and Australia. Discriminative ability and prognostic accuracy summary statistics were compared between models for the 30-day postoperative pulmonary complication rate as defined by the Standardised Endpoints in Perioperative Medicine Core Outcome Measures in Perioperative and Anaesthetic Care (StEP-COMPAC). Model performance was compared using the area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (AUROCC). Findings In total, we identified 2903 records from our literature search; of which, 2514 (86·6%) unique records were screened, 121 (4·8%) of 2514 full texts were assessed for eligibility, and 29 unique prognostic models were identified. Nine (31·0%) of 29 models had score development reported only, 19 (65·5%) had undergone internal validation, and only four (13·8%) had been externally validated. Data to validate six eligible models were collected in the international external validation cohort study. Data from 11 591 patients were available, with an overall postoperative pulmonary complication rate of 7·8% (n=903). None of the six models showed good discrimination (defined as AUROCC ≥0·70) for identifying postoperative pulmonary complications, with the Assess Respiratory Risk in Surgical Patients in Catalonia score showing the best discrimination (AUROCC 0·700 [95% CI 0·683–0·717]). Interpretation In the pre-COVID-19 pandemic data, variability in the risk of pulmonary complications (StEP-COMPAC definition) following major abdominal surgery was poorly described by existing prognostication tools. To improve surgical safety during the COVID-19 pandemic recovery and beyond, novel risk stratification tools are required. Funding British Journal of Surgery Society