Combining a leadership course and multi-source feedback has no effect on leadership skills of leaders in postgraduate medical education. An intervention study with a control group

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Leadership courses and multi-source feedback are widely used developmental tools for leaders in health care. On this background we aimed to study the additional effect of a leadership course following a multi-source feedback procedure compared to multi-source feedback alone especially regarding development of leadership skills over time.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>Study participants were consultants responsible for postgraduate medical education at clinical departments. Study design: pre-post measures with an intervention and control group. The intervention was participation in a seven-day leadership course. Scores of multi-source feedback from the consultants responsible for education and respondents (heads of department, consultants and doctors in specialist training) were collected before and one year after the intervention and analysed using Mann-Whitney's U-test and Multivariate analysis of variances.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>There were no differences in multi-source feedback scores at one year follow up compared to baseline measurements, either in the intervention or in the control group (p = 0.149).</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>The study indicates that a leadership course following a MSF procedure compared to MSF alone does not improve leadership skills of consultants responsible for education in clinical departments. Developing leadership skills takes time and the time frame of one year might have been too short to show improvement in leadership skills of consultants responsible for education. Further studies are needed to investigate if other combination of initiatives to develop leadership might have more impact in the clinical setting.</p

Sonographic and Endoscopic Findings in Cocaine-Induced Ischemic Colitis

Cocaine-induced ischemic colitis is a recognized entity. The diagnosis is based on clinical and endoscopic findings. However, diagnostic imaging is helpful in the evaluation of abdominal symptoms and prior studies have suggested specific sonographic findings in ischemic colitis. We report sonographic and endoscopic images along with abdominal computed tomography in a case of cocaine-induced ischemic colitis

Case Report Sonographic and Endoscopic Findings in Cocaine-Induced Ischemic Colitis

Cocaine-induced ischemic colitis is a recognized entity. The diagnosis is based on clinical and endoscopic findings. However, diagnostic imaging is helpful in the evaluation of abdominal symptoms and prior studies have suggested specific sonographic findings in ischemic colitis. We report sonographic and endoscopic images along with abdominal computed tomography in a case of cocaine-induced ischemic colitis

Qualitative Differences in Students’ Perceptions of Others in a Networked Learning Environment

In networked learning practice the emphasis on human relations for learning beyond engagement with learning materials using information and communication technologies is a significant shift from the prevalent classroom-based lecture which students are used to. In networked learning teachers are assumed to take a less prominent position permitting students to experience learning through active participation in cooperative and collaborative activities with others. This paper proposes a constitutive description for considering human players for learning in the formal networked learning environment hence departing from previous depictions of contrasting views reported in the research literature. Different ways teachers and students are perceived to contribute to networked learning experiencing are understood in distinction and in relation to each other. This portrayal is the research outcome of a phenomenographic investigation which led to a configuration comprised of three qualitatively different ways how students account for the teacher and other students contributing to their learning in a formal networked learning environment. The hierarchically inclusive categories describing this variation have the student perceiving other students as separately persevering with their own studies and the teacher as director of all learning; to the perception of other students as direct contributors through their visible activity and interactivity and the teacher as organiser and guide for students’ learning; to the perception of other students as co-creators for learning and the teacher as convenor coming close to being co-actor. The structural threads drawing these categories together into a single coherent whole are the academic role or active responsibility for learning teachers and other students are perceived to assume which across the structuring continuum are in a relationship of pairwise alignment. These findings project different perceptions as all legitimate and suggest that in deepening awareness teachers and learners gravitate towards becoming teachers and learners for each other. Moreover in this writing is emphasised the constitutive and open nature of phenomenographic description projecting fluidity for thinking about students' perceptions of human others as contributors to NL experiencing. All this emphasises that networked learning provision needs to incorporate a directed effort to accommodate diversity in how students perceive and hence relate to human others for learning when in the formal networked learning setting, building in support to encourage students embracing different perceptions to experiment different learning and teaching roles as networked learning participants.peer-reviewe