Academic Position in Medical Education Research

The Office of Post Graduate Medical Education (PGME), together with the Medical Education and Research Unit (MERU), invites applications for a full-time academic position in medical education research at the Assistant or Associate Professor level

Academic Position

Director of the Alberta International Medical Graduate (AIMG) Progra

Medical Education Breakthroughs: What Constitutes Milestones in Curriculum, Teaching and Assessment?

Medical Education Breakthroughs: What Constitutes Milestones in Curriculum, Teaching and Assessment

Using Item Analysis to Assess Objectively the Quality of the Calgary-Cambridge OSCE Checklist

Background:  The purpose of this study was to investigate the use of item analysis to assess objectively the quality of items on the Calgary-Cambridge Communications OSCE checklist.Methods:  A total of 150 first year medical students were provided with extensive teaching on the use of the Calgary-Cambridge Guidelines for interviewing patients and participated in a final year end 20 minute communication OSCE station.  Grouped into either the upper half (50%) or lower half (50%) communication skills performance groups, discrimination, difficulty and point biserial values were calculated for each checklist item.Results:  The mean score on the 33 item communication checklist was 24.09 (SD = 4.46) and the internal reliability coefficient was ? = 0.77. Although most of the items were found to have moderate (k = 12, 36%) or excellent (k = 10, 30%) discrimination values, there were 6 (18%) identified as ‘fair’ and 3 (9%) as ‘poor’. A post-examination review focused on item analysis findings resulted in an increase in checklist reliability (? = 0.80).Conclusions:  Item analysis has been used with MCQ exams extensively. In this study, it was also found to be an objective and practical approach to use in evaluating the quality of a standardized OSCE checklist

The Reliability and Validity of a Paediatric Script Concordance Test with Medical Students, Paediatric Residents and Experienced Paediatricians

Background: The Script Concordance (SC) approach was used as an alternative test format to measure the presence of knowledge organization reflective in one’s clinical reasoning skills (i.e., diagnostic, investigation and treatment knowledge).Methods:  The present study investigated the reliability and validity of a 40-item paediatric version of the SC test with three groups representing 53 medical students (novices), 42 paediatric residents (intermediates) and 11 paediatricians (experts).Results:  A comparison between scoring techniques based on experts’ ratings of the items showed internal reliability coefficients from .74 for the one-best answer up to .78 for alternative scoring techniques.  An ANOVA showed an increase in test performance from medical students through to expert paediatricians (F(2,103) = 84.05, p < .001), but did not differentiate between the postgraduate year 1 to 3 paediatric residents.  A large effect size (Cohen’s d) difference of 1.06 was found between medical students and residents total SC test scores.Conclusions:  These results support other findings indicating the SC test format can be used to differentiate between the clinical reasoning skills of novices, intermediates and experts in paediatrics.  An alternative scoring method that includes one best answer and partial marks was also supported for grading SC test items

Assessing the scholar CanMEDS role in residents using critical appraisal techniques

Background: In this brief report, we describe two ways in which we assessed the Scholar CanMEDS role using a method to measure residents’ ability to complete a critical appraisal.  These were incorporated into a modified OSCE format where two stations consisted of 1) critically appraising an article and 2) critiquing an abstract.Method: Residents were invited to participate in the CanMEDS In-Training Exam (CITE) through the Office of Postgraduate Medical Education. Mean scores for the two Scholar stations were calculated using the number of correct responses out of 10. The global score represented the examiner’s overall impression of the resident’s knowledge and effort.  Correlations between scores are also presented between the two Scholar stations and a paired sample t-test comparing the global mean scores of the two stations was also performed.Results: Sixty-three of the 64 residents registered to complete the CanMEDS In-Training Exam including the two Scholar stations.  There were no significant differences between the global scores of the Scholar stations showing that the overall knowledge and effort of the residents was similar across both stations (3.8 vs. 3.5, p = 0.13).  The correlation between the total mean scores of both stations (inter-station reliability) was also non-significant (r = 0.05, p = 0.67).  No significant differences between senior residents and junior residents were detected or between internal medicine residents and non-internal medicine residents.Conclusion: Further testing of these stations is needed and other novel ways of assessing the Scholar role competencies should also be investigated

Leadership competencies for medical education and healthcare professions: population-based study

Article deposited according to the BMJ Group policy for BMJ Open: http:// group.bmj.com/group/rights-licensing/permissions/authorreprints, August 21, 2012.YesFunding provided by the Open Access Authors Fund

Large deviations of the maximal eigenvalue of random matrices

We present detailed computations of the 'at least finite' terms (three dominant orders) of the free energy in a one-cut matrix model with a hard edge a, in beta-ensembles, with any polynomial potential. beta is a positive number, so not restricted to the standard values beta = 1 (hermitian matrices), beta = 1/2 (symmetric matrices), beta = 2 (quaternionic self-dual matrices). This model allows to study the statistic of the maximum eigenvalue of random matrices. We compute the large deviation function to the left of the expected maximum. We specialize our results to the gaussian beta-ensembles and check them numerically. Our method is based on general results and procedures already developed in the literature to solve the Pastur equations (also called "loop equations"). It allows to compute the left tail of the analog of Tracy-Widom laws for any beta, including the constant term.Comment: 62 pages, 4 figures, pdflatex ; v2 bibliography corrected ; v3 typos corrected and preprint added ; v4 few more numbers adde