Teaching Medicine to Non-English Speaking Background Learners in a Foreign Country

Teaching abroad exposes medical educators to unfamiliar teaching methods and learning styles that can enhance their overall teaching repertoire. Based on the author’s experience teaching residents for one month at a community hospital in Japan and a review of the non-English speaking background (NESB) educational literature, pedagogical principles and lessons for successful international NESB instruction are outlined. These methods include understanding the dissimilar linguistic, cultural, and academic backgrounds of the learners, emphasizing pace and clarity of speech, presenting a conceptual framework instead of detailed discourse on subjects, and regular visual reinforcement of spoken words. The limitations introduced by the language barrier and the use of interpreters are briefly discussed. As society and institutions of higher learning become more global and multicultural, clinician–educators may benefit from teaching in other countries in order to enhance their teaching skills with NESB learners, both abroad and in their own institutions

Morbidity and Mortality Conference: A Survey of Academic Internal Medicine Departments

This study sought to determine the prevalence and characteristics of morbidity and mortality conferences (M&MCs) in U.S. internal medicine training programs. Two hundred ninety-five of 416 (71%) surveys were returned. Ninety percent of programs have an M&MC. Most meet monthly, have a designated leader, and entail case discussions of 3 or fewer patients. Cases are selected on the basis of unexpected bad outcomes, teaching value, and to a lesser extent, suspected medical error. Two thirds of the sites use M&MCs to meet administrative requirements for quality assurance. M&MC, while prevalent in internal medicine training programs, has a heterogeneity of focus. Hence, the goals and role of the conference, as judged by this survey, do not appear to be well defined and may warrant further clarification

Morbidity and Mortality Conference, Grand Rounds, and the ACGME's Core Competencies

Morbidity and Mortality (M&M) Conferences are an Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME) mandated educational series that occur regularly at all institutions that have residency training programs. The potential for learning from medical errors, complications, and unanticipated outcomes is immense—provided that the focus is on education, as opposed to culpability. The education innovation described in this manuscript is the manner in which we have used the ACGME Outcome Project's 6 core competencies as the structure upon which the cases discussed at our M&M conference are framed. When presented at grand rounds in a novel format, M&M conference has not only maintained support for the quality improvement efforts in the Department, but has served to improve the educational impact of the conference

A quantitative survey of intern’s knowledge of communications skills: an Iranian exploration

Background It is a high priority that health care providers have effective communication skills. It has been well documented that the doctor-patient relationship is central to the delivery of high quality medical care, and it has been shown to affect patient satisfaction, to decrease the use of pain killers, to shorten hospital stays, to improve recovery from surgery and a variety of other biological, psychological and social outcomes. This study sought to quantify the current knowledge of interns in Iran about communication skills. Methods A cross-sectional study using a self-report questionnaire was conducted among interns. Data analysis was based on 223 questionnaires. The internal consistency of the items was 0.8979. Results Overall, knowledge levels were unsatisfactory. Results indicated that interns had a limited knowledge of communication skills, including identification of communication skills. In addition, there was a significant difference between the mean scores of interns on breaking bad news and sex education. The confidence of males about their communication skills was significantly higher than for females. Analysis of the total scores by age and sex showed that there was a statistically significant main effect for sex and the interaction with age was statistically significant. Free response comments of the interns are also discussed. Conclusions It is argued that there is a real need for integrating a communication skills course, which is linked to the various different ethnic and religious backgrounds of interns, into Iranian medical curricula. Some recommendations are made and the limitations of the study are discussed

Do General Internal Medicine Fellows Find Jobs That Match Their Training?

We surveyed employers of general internists at teaching hospitals to determine whether they prefer that new hires are graduates of general internal medicine (GIM) fellowships. We surveyed former GIM fellows who graduated between 1988 and 1994 to determine whether they found jobs with protected research time and whether the positions they found matched their expectations. Employers rated a GIM fellowship, among other criteria, as important for clinician-researchers, but not for clinician-educators. For graduates categorized as clinician-researchers (with more than 33% of their time protected for research), there was a good match between their actual time allocations for research and clinical work and what they recalled their expectations were when looking for a job. Clinician-educators had a marked discordance between actual time allocations for research and clinical work and their recollection of their expectations when looking for a job