Twelve tips for enhancing student engagement.

Student engagement refers to a broad range of activities where students participate in management, education, research, and community activities within their institutions. It is a mutually beneficial collaborative approach between students and their institutions. This article provides practical advice for the implementation or further development of student engagement at medical, dental, and veterinary schools. The tips provided are based on the experiences of a group of universities recently recognized for best practice in student engagement, and are supported by evidence from the literature. The tips cover overarching themes which include the creation of an institutional culture and formal framework for student engagement, and maximize communication routes between students with peers and faculty. Tips are for specific areas of active student engagement, covering curriculum design and development, peer teaching, governance processes, research activities, peer support programs, and interaction with the local community.

Validation of the Jefferson Scale of Patient Perception of Physician Empathy Spanish (Spain) Version in Primary Care.

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES: Empathy is considered a prerequisite for a successful physician-patient relationship. The Jefferson Scale of Patient Perceptions of Physician Empathy (JSPPPE) is a regularly-used, patient-rated measure of physician empathy. The aim of this study is to translate and analyze the reliability and validity of the JSPPPE Spanish (Spain) version (Sp-JSPPPE) in primary care in order to use it with medical trainees. METHODS: After translation and back translation of the JSPPPE, 369 patients from 21 primary care physicians in Pamplona (Navarre, Spain) completed the Sp-JSPPPE, a sociodemographic questionnaire, the Spanish (Spain) Consultation and Relational Empathy Measure (Sp-CARE), and a question about overall satisfaction. We studied internal reliability (Cronbach's α and ordinal α), homogeneity (corrected item-total correlations), construct validity (confirmatory factor analysis [CFA]) and concurrent validity (Spearman's correlation) of Sp-JSPPPE. RESULTS: Cronbach's α and ordinal α were 0.870 and 0.919, respectively, for the Sp-JSPPPE, and all corrected item-total correlations exceeded the accepted cutoff of 0.30, demonstrating high internal reliability and homogeneity. CFA corroborated the one-factor structure proposed in the original version. The total score for the Sp-JSPPPE was significantly correlated with sp-CARE (Spearman's ϱ 0.651, P<.001) and with overall patient satisfaction (Spearman's ϱ 0.504, P<.001). CONCLUSIONS: The results support the reliability and validity of the Sp-JSPPPE in primary care. Sp-JSPPPE could be useful in empathy assessment of medical trainees, both graduate and postgraduate, in the Spanish context.

Video-Based Surgical Learning: Improving Trainee Education and Preparation for Surgery.

BACKGROUND: Since the end of the XIX century, teaching of surgery has remained practically unaltered until now. With the dawn of video-assisted laparoscopy, surgery has faced new technical and learning challenges. Due to technological advances, from Internet access to portable electronic devices, the use of online resources is part of the educational armamentarium. In this respect, videos have already proven to be effective and useful, however the best way to benefit from these tools is still not clearly defined. AIMS: To assess the importance of video-based learning, using an electronic questionnaire applied to residents and specialists of different surgical fields. METHODS: Importance of video-based learning was assessed in a sample of 141 subjects, using a questionnaire distributed by a GoogleDoc online form. RESULTS: We found that 98.6% of the respondents have already used videos to prepare for surgery. When comparing video sources by formation status, residents were found to use Youtube significantly more often than specialists (p < 0.001). Additionally, residents placed more value on didactic illustrations and procedure narration than specialists (p < 0.001). On the other hand, specialists prized surgeon's technical skill and the presence of tips and tricks much more than residents (p < 0.001). CONCLUSION: Video-based learning is currently a hallmark of surgical preparation among residents and specialists working in Portugal. Based on these findings we believe that the creation of quality and scientifically accurate videos, and subsequent compilation in available video-libraries appears to be the future landscape for video-based learning.