Twelve tips for improving the effectiveness of web-based multimedia instruction for clinical learners.

Using educational technology does not necessarily make medical education more effective. There are many different kinds of technology available to the contemporary medical teacher and what constitutes effective use may depend on the technology, the learning situation and many other factors. Web-based multimedia instruction (WBMI) provides learners with self-directed independent learning opportunities based on didactic material enhanced with multimedia features such as video and animations. WBMI may be used to replace other didactic events (e.g. lectures) or it may be provided in addition to other learning opportunities. Clinical educators looking to use WBMI need to make sure that it will meet both their learners' needs and the program's needs, and it has to align to the contexts in which it is used. The following 12 tips have been developed to help guide faculty through some of the key features of the effective use of WBMI in clinical teaching programs. These tips are based on more than a decade developing, using and appraising WBMI in support of surgical clerkship education across the USA and beyond and they are intended both to inform individual uses of WBMI in clinical training and to guide the strategic use of WBMI in clinical clerkship curricula.

Improving the Clinical Skills Performance of Graduating Medical Students Using "WISE OnCall," a Multimedia Educational Module.

INTRODUCTION: "Transitions to residency" programs are designed to maximize quality and safety of patient care, as medical students become residents. However, best instructional or readiness assessment practices are not yet established. We sought to study the impact of a screen-based interactive curriculum designed to prepare interns to address common clinical coverage issues (WISE OnCall) on the clinical skills demonstrated in simulation and hypothesize that performance would improve after completing the module. METHODS: Senior medical students were recruited to participate in this single group prestudy/poststudy. Students responded to a call from a standardized nurse (SN) and assessed a standardized patient (SP) with low urine output, interacted with a 45-minute WISE OnCall module on the assessment and management of oliguria, and then evaluated a different SP with low urine output of a different underlying cause. Standardized patients assessed clinical skills with a 37-item, behaviorally anchored checklist measuring clinical skills (intraclass correlation coefficient [ICC], 0.55-0.81). Standardized nurses rated care quality and safety and collaboration and interprofessional communication using a 33-item literature-based, anchored checklist (ICC, 0.47-0.52). Standardized patient and SN ratings of the same student performance were correlated (r, 0.37-0.62; P < 0.01). Physicians assessed clinical reasoning quality based on the students' patient encounter note (ICC, 0.55-0.68), ratings that did not correlate with SP and SN ratings. We compared pre-post clinical skills performance and clinical reasoning. Fifty-two medical students (31%) completed this institutional review board -approved study. RESULTS: Performance as measured by the SPs, SNs, and the postencounter note all showed improvement with mostly moderate to large effect sizes (range of Cohen's d, 0.30-1.88; P < 0.05) after completion of the online module. Unexpectedly, professionalism as rated by the SP was poorer after the module (Cohen's d, -0.93; P = 0.000). DISCUSSION: A brief computer-based educational intervention significantly improved graduating medical students' clinical skills needed to be ready for residency.

A simulated "Night-onCall" to assess and address the readiness-for-internship of transitioning medical students.

Transitioning medical students are anxious about their readiness-for-internship, as are their residency program directors and teaching hospital leadership responsible for care quality and patient safety. A readiness-for-internship assessment program could contribute to ensuring optimal quality and safety and be a key element in implementing competency-based, time-variable medical education. In this paper, we describe the development of the Night-onCall program (NOC), a 4-h readiness-for-internship multi-instructional method simulation event. NOC was designed and implemented over the course of 3 years to provide an authentic "night on call" experience for near graduating students and build measurements of students' readiness for this transition framed by the Association of American Medical College's Core Entrustable Professional Activities for Entering Residency. The NOC is a product of a program of research focused on questions related to enabling individualized pathways through medical training. The lessons learned and modifications made to create a feasible, acceptable, flexible, and educationally rich NOC are shared to inform the discussion about transition to residency curriculum and best practices regarding educational handoffs from undergraduate to graduate education.