Comparison of Attempts Needed for Veterinary Students to Reach Proficiency in a Basic and Advanced Robotic Simulator Task.

Surgical training of students is one of the most difficult aspects of veterinary medical education. Competing interests of house officers, owner's wishes, and ethical concerns have led to increasing use of inanimate models for basic surgical skills training. Robotic simulators have benefits for psychomotor training but have not been previously investigated in veterinary medicine. Understanding the necessary practice time for new training devices is important when determining their potential value. The aim of this study was to compare the number of attempts needed for veterinary students to reach proficiency in both a basic and advanced robotic simulator task, and to assess the predictive nature of performance variables. Each student performed a basic and advanced tasks on the Mimic dV-Trainer™ until proficiency was reached. Students required a median of eight attempts (95% CI = 7-8, range: 6-11) to reach proficiency for the basic task versus 22 attempts (95% CI = 20-26, range: 11-62) for the advanced task. The median time required to complete training for the basic and advanced task was 13.5 minutes (range: 8-24 minutes) and 26.5 minutes (range: 11-82 minutes) respectively. The difference in task attempts supports the training protocol and confirms proficiency can be attained in a short period of time. The number of attempts to reach proficiency correlated with specific performance variables which can be used by educators to aid in training students on a robotic simulator. Continued investigations on robotic simulators should be performed to investigate their use in improving psychomotor skills in veterinary students.

Intern Perceptions and Participation in the Operating Room.

OBJECTIVE: ACGME work hour restrictions and decreasing resident case volumes have led to concern regarding competence of surgical residency graduates. Early operative experience is an important component of surgical education, providing a foundation for further learning. Intern year represents an opportunity for increased exposure. We sought to examine factors impacting intern perceptions and participation in the operating room. METHODS: This cross-sectional retrospective study evaluated the experience of interns from June 2019 through June 2020. Data was collected from nursing operative case logs, self-reported ACGME intern case logs, and an intern survey from the 2019 to 2020 academic year for 3 surgical services at a large academic institution. The primary endpoint was intern presence in operative cases and perceived experience. SETTING: University of California, Davis Medical Center, a large academic training institution and tertiary referral center located in Sacramento, California. PARTICIPANTS: A total of 31 interns comprised the 2019 to 2020 training cohort, including preliminary, categorical general surgery, and integrated subspecialty residents classified as intern by the institution, regardless of postgraduate training year. RESULTS: Interns were present in 945 (46%) of 2054 operative cases. Multivariable analysis indicated the presence of an APP (OR 1.68, 95% C.I. 1.34-2.10, p = 0.00) and a female attending (OR 1.30, 95% C.I. 1.07-1.58, p = 0.01) increased the likelihood of intern participation, while presence of an upper level resident decreased the likelihood (OR 0.35, 95% C.I. 0.22-0.57, p = 0.00). Interns participated in more cases later in the year compared to earlier (43% vs 59%, Z = 4.72, p = < 0.001). Surveys demonstrated participation was associated with encouragement by faculty and senior residents and a positive learning environment. Competing floor and clinic responsibilities negatively impacted participation (p < 0.001). CONCLUSIONS: Intern operative experience can be robust in the setting of ACGME work hour guidelines. Identified factors represent possible areas for improvement in service organization.

What Matters Most to Residency and Intern Selection Committees in Veterinary Medicine?

A recent survey of members of residency selection committees for the American College of Veterinary Internal Medicine and American College of Veterinary Surgeons boards found letters of recommendation to be the most important factor when reviewing a resident's application followed by class rank as the second most important factor. These statistics indicate an interesting, but possibly troubling trend. This Letter to The Editor discusses the major problems concerning these findings and what residency program committees might consider as an alternative.

AAVMC Internship Program Guidelines 2018.

Veterinary internships are common 1-year post-graduate clinical training programs that are offered both at veterinary colleges and in private practice settings. To promote the quality of these training programs, the American Association of Veterinary Medical Colleges (AAVMC) charged a working group to develop these internship guidelines, which were approved by the AAVMC in 2018 and have also been endorsed by the American Association of Veterinary Clinicians. These guidelines are intended to be applicable to all internships, in both academic and private practice settings, and they place particular emphasis on three aspects of internship training programs: competency-based education, intern well-being, and program outcome.

The Educational Resource Preferences and Information-Seeking Behaviors of Veterinary Medical Students and Practitioners.

The overall purpose of this study was to assess the information-seeking strategies of individuals representing different stages of veterinary training. More specifically, we conducted a survey to evaluate textbook ownership, to determine the preferred types of educational resources and why these preferences exist, and to determine if changes arise as training progresses. We asked students in the veterinary curriculum, interns, residents, and recent graduates from the University of Georgia (UGA) College of Veterinary Medicine (CVM) to participate in a confidential online survey. A total of 184 individuals participated. Respondents were grouped into one of six categories: recent graduates (n = 6), interns/residents (n = 11), fourth-year students (n = 21), third-year students (n = 46), second-year students (n = 73), and first-year students (n = 27). The results showed that veterinary students used class notes and non-veterinary search engines initially, whereas interns and residents consulted textbooks and the primary literature as their first sources to answer a veterinary question. Veterinary students had accrued textbooks over sequential years in the curriculum, but many interns and residents had almost twice as many textbooks as those who had not pursued additional training after graduation. An ANOVA showed that first-year students reported a preference for printed textbooks significantly more frequently than the third-year and fourth-year students (F(5,163) = 3.265, p = .006, and p = .012, respectively). Decreased cost was most frequently cited as the factor that would increase textbook purchases.

Improvement of education for clinical nutrition interns based on Joint Commission International standards / 中华医学教育探索杂志

Huashan Hospital became the first Academic Medical Center Hospital accredited by Joint Commission International (JCI) in 2013. The Department of Clinical Nutrition has constantly improved internship education through the introduction of JCI standards. Based on the flexible combination of teaching and practicing modules, clinical nutrition knowledge is closely integrated with professional dietitian skills, and in-depth practical training helps students to acquire much more experience of the occupation as a dietitian. Teachers think highly of students' initiative and knowledge conversion ability, and in the recent five years, undergraduate projects have been enhanced in both quantity and quality.

Improvement of education for clinical nutrition interns based on Joint Commission International standards / 中华医学教育探索杂志

Huashan Hospital became the first Academic Medical Center Hospital accredited by Joint Commission International (JCI) in 2013. The Department of Clinical Nutrition has constantly improved internship education through the introduction of JCI standards. Based on the flexible combination of teaching and practicing modules, clinical nutrition knowledge is closely integrated with professional dietitian skills, and in-depth practical training helps students to acquire much more experience of the occupation as a dietitian. Teachers think highly of students' initiative and knowledge conversion ability, and in the recent five years, undergraduate projects have been enhanced in both quantity and quality.

Effect of chronic disease management-based education on clinical teaching and training in cardio-vascular medicine / 中华医学教育探索杂志

Objectives Aiming at the current health management mode of chronic disease preven-tion and control as the focus of work, this paper was to evaluate the effect of chronic disease management-based education on clinical teaching and training in cardiovascular medicine. Methods Totally 54 students participating in internship training in Department of Cardiology, the Shanghai Ninth People’s Hospital be-tween July 2013 and Aug 2014 were enrolled. Twenty-eight students were taught by chronic disease man-agement-based method while twenty-six students were taught by traditional method. After the internship training in cardiology, final examination (theoretical exam, skill appraisal and case analysis) were compared between the two groups to assess the teaching efficacy. Questionnaire survey was employed to investigate student satisfaction with chronic disease management-based teaching method. Data were analyzed by SPSS 13.0 software. Quantitative data or enumeration data between two groups were compared by t-test or chi-square test respectively. Results There was no significant difference in the theoretical exam score between two groups (P=0.422). However, the scores of skill appraisal and case analysis in students taught by chronic disease management-based method were significantly higher than those in students taught by traditional method (P<0.05). Most students taught by chronic disease management-based method were satisfied with the novel teaching method. Conclusion In the course of clinical medicine education, the emphasis on the management of chronic diseases can not only significantly improve the quality of clinical teaching in car-diovascular medicine, but also lay the foundation for the implementation of the concept of chronic disease management.

Exploration of the perceptions of emergency physicians and interns regarding the medical documentation practices of interns.

OBJECTIVES: The primary objective of the present study was to learn the factors that influence the documentation practices of ED interns. A second objective was to identify the expectations of emergency physicians (EPs) towards the medical record documentation of ED interns. METHODS: A qualitative design was adopted using semi-structured interviews in convenience samples drawn from both groups. RESULTS: Eighteen interviews were conducted with intern volunteers and 10 with EP volunteers. One (5%) intern and two (20%) EPs had received medical documentation training. Factors that encouraged interns' documentation included: patient acuity (the more critical the condition, the more comprehensive the documentation) and the support of senior colleagues. Inhibiting factors included uncertainty about how much to write, and the shift being worked (interns indicated they wrote less at night). Factors of consequence to senior personnel included the apparent reluctance of interns to document management plans. They noted that interns frequently confine their notes to assessment, investigations and treatments, whereas EPs preferred records that demonstrated intern thought processes and included such matters as future actions to follow immediate treatment. A positive theme that emerged included the high level of support interns received from their senior colleagues. Another theme, the influence of patient acuity, held both positive and negative implications for intern writing practices. CONCLUSION: The lack of formal training is an impediment to the production of useful medical records by ED interns. One solution proposed by both interns and senior personnel was the introduction of the subject into intern education programmes.