Using epistemic network analysis to identify targets for educational interventions in trauma team communication.

BACKGROUND: Epistemic Network Analysis (ENA) is a technique for modeling and comparing the structure of connections between elements in coded data. We hypothesized that connections among team discourse elements as modeled by ENA would predict the quality of team performance in trauma simulation. METHODS: The Modified Non-technical Skills Scale for Trauma (T-NOTECHS) was used to score a simulation-based trauma team resuscitation. Sixteen teams of 5 trainees participated. Dialogue was coded using Verbal Response Modes (VRM), a speech classification system. ENA was used to model the connections between VRM codes. ENA models of teams with lesser T-NOTECHS scores (n = 9, mean = 16.98, standard deviation [SD] = 1.45) were compared with models of teams with greater T-NOTECHS scores (n = 7, mean = 21.02, SD = 1.09). RESULTS: Teams had different patterns of connections among VRM speech form codes with regard to connections among questions and edifications (meanHIGH = 0.115, meanLOW = -0.089; t = 2.21; P = .046, Cohen d = 1.021). Greater-scoring groups had stronger connections between stating information and providing acknowledgments, confirmation, or advising. Lesser-scoring groups had a stronger connection between asking questions and stating information. Discourse data suggest that this pattern reflected increased uncertainty. Lesser-scoring groups also had stronger connections from edifications to disclosures (revealing thoughts, feelings, and intentions) and interpretations (explaining, judging, and evaluating the behavior of others). CONCLUSION: ENA is a novel and valid method to assess communication among trauma teams. Differences in communication among higher- and lower-performing teams appear to result from the ways teams use questions. ENA allowed us to identify targets for improvement related to the use of questions and stating information by team members.

The hands and head of a surgeon: Modeling operative competency with multimodal epistemic network analysis.

BACKGROUND: This paper explores a method for assessing intraoperative performance by modeling how surgeons integrate psychomotor, procedural, and cognitive skills to manage errors. METHODS: Audio-video data were collected from general surgery residents (N = 45) performing a simulated laparoscopic ventral hernia repair. Errors were identified using a standard checklist, and speech was coded for elements related to error recognition and management. Epistemic network analysis (ENA) was used to model the integration of error management skills. RESULTS: There was no correlation between number or type of errors committed and operative outcome. However, ENA models showed significant differences in the integration of error management skills between high-performing and low-performing residents. CONCLUSION: These results suggest that error checklists and surgeons' speech can be used to model the integration of psychomotor, procedural, and cognitive aspects of intraoperative performance. Moreover, ENA can identify and quantify this integration, providing insight on performance gaps in both individuals and populations.

A novel paradigm for engineering education: virtual internships with individualized mentoring and assessment of engineering thinking.

Engineering virtual internships are a novel paradigm for providing authentic engineering experiences in the first-year curriculum. They are both individualized and accommodate large numbers of students. As we describe in this report, this approach can (a) enable students to solve complex engineering problems in a mentored, collaborative environment; (b) allow educators to assess engineering thinking; and (c) provide an introductory experience that students enjoy and find valuable. Furthermore, engineering virtual internships have been shown to increase students'-and especially women's-interest in and motivation to pursue engineering degrees. When implemented in first-year engineering curricula more broadly, the potential impact of engineering virtual internships on the size and diversity of the engineering workforce could be dramatic.

"Children with half-starved bodies" and the assessment of malnutrition in the United States, 1890-1950.

Malnutrition was one of the most significant children's health issues of the early twentieth century, but it also engendered considerable controversy. Just how many children were truly malnourished, and how could they be reliably identified? Despite the failures of numerous diagnostic methods-even the definition of malnutrition defied consensus-health authorities remained convinced that malnutrition was a serious and widespread problem. Indeed, the imprecision that surrounded the condition allowed it to be used metaphorically to advance a broad range of professional, social, and public health agendas. By the 1940s, due in part to the lack of reliable diagnostic methods, public health nutrition policy shifted abruptly from one of assessment, based on mass surveillance and individualized care, to one of management, based on a universal program of nutrition education, fortification of foods, and food security that treated all children as in need of nutritional assistance.

The schism between medical and public health education: a historical perspective.

The separation of "medicine" and "public health" in academic institutions limits the potential synergies that an integrated educational model could offer. The roots of this separation are deeply imbedded in history. During the past two centuries, there have been repeated efforts to integrate public health education into the core training of physicians, usually in response to a perceived short-term crisis, and without widespread, lasting success. The cost of additional public health instruction and the "overcrowding" of the medical curriculum have been cited as obstacles for creating an integrated medical/public health curriculum for more than a century. Several thoughtful and prescient proposals for integration were developed at a conference convened by the Rockefeller Foundation in the early 20th century, but not all were implemented. Today, there is growing recognition of the considerable value afforded by the integration of medicine and public health education. Many schools have responded to a national call for a renewed relationship between medicine and public health by increasing the availability of MD/MPH programs and/or by incorporating one or more public health courses into the basic medical curriculum. A few schools have created more substantial and innovative changes. Review and consideration of the history and politics of past efforts may serve as a guide for the development of successful new approaches to creating a clinical workforce that incorporates the principles of both clinical medicine and public health.