Interpreter and limited-English proficiency patient training helps develop medical and physician assistant students' cross-cultural communication skills.

BACKGROUND: The increasing linguistic and cultural diversity in the United States underscores the necessity of enhancing healthcare professionals' cross-cultural communication skills. This study focuses on incorporating interpreter and limited-English proficiency (LEP) patient training into the medical and physician assistant student curriculum. This aims to improve equitable care provision, addressing the vulnerability of LEP patients to healthcare disparities, including errors and reduced access. Though training is recognized as crucial, opportunities in medical curricula remain limited. METHODS: To bridge this gap, a novel initiative was introduced in a medical school, involving second-year students in clinical sessions with actual LEP patients and interpreters. These sessions featured interpreter input, patient interactions, and feedback from interpreters and clinical preceptors. A survey assessed the perspectives of students, preceptors, and interpreters. RESULTS: Outcomes revealed positive reception of interpreter and LEP patient integration. Students gained confidence in working with interpreters and valued interpreter feedback. Preceptors recognized the sessions' value in preparing students for future clinical interactions. CONCLUSIONS: This study underscores the importance of involving experienced interpreters in training students for real-world interactions with LEP patients. Early interpreter training enhances students' communication skills and ability to serve linguistically diverse populations. Further exploration could expand languages and interpretation modes and assess long-term effects on students' clinical performance. By effectively training future healthcare professionals to navigate language barriers and cultural diversity, this research contributes to equitable patient care in diverse communities.

Qualitative Assessment of Clerkship Students' Perspectives of the Topics of Pain and Addiction in their Preclinical Curriculum.

OBJECTIVE: A majority of physicians feel poorly trained in the treatment of chronic pain and addiction. As such, it is critical that medical students receive appropriate education in both pain management and addiction. The purpose of this study was to assess the pre-clinical curriculum in pain medicine and addiction from the perspective of students after they had completed their pre-clinical training and to assess what they perceived as the strengths and weaknesses of their training. METHODS: The authors conducted focused interviews among clinical medical students who had completed at least 6 months of clerkships. The interviews targeted the students' retrospective opinions about the pre-clinical curriculum and their preparedness for clinical encounters with either pain or addiction-related issues during their rotations. Coders thematically analyzed the de-identified interview transcripts, with consensus reached through discussion and code modification. RESULTS: Themes that emerged through the focused interviews included: fragmented curricular structure (and insufficient time) for pain and addiction medicine, not enough specific treatment strategies for pain or addiction, especially for complex clinical scenarios, and lack of a trained work-force to provide guidance in the management of pain and addiction. CONCLUSION: This study demonstrated the feasibility of gathering student perspectives to inform changes to improve the pre-clinical curriculum in pain and addiction medicine. Students identified multiple areas for improvement at the pre-clerkship level, which have informed updates to the curriculum. More research is needed to determine if curricular changes based on student feedback lead to improved learning outcomes.

The SGIM TEACH Program: A Curriculum for Teachers of Clinical Medicine.

BACKGROUND: Demand for faculty with teaching expertise is increasing as medical education is becoming well established as a career pathway. Junior faculty may be expected to take on teaching responsibilities with minimal training in teaching skills. AIM: To address the faculty development needs of junior clinician-educators with teaching responsibilities and those changing their career focus to include teaching. SETTING: Sessions at two Society of General Internal Medicine (SGIM) annual meetings combined with local coaching and online learning during the intervening year. PARTICIPANTS: Eighty-nine faculty scholars in four consecutive annual cohorts from 2013 to 2016. PROGRAM DESCRIPTION: Scholars participate in a full-day core teaching course as well as selective workshops at the annual meetings. Between meetings they receive direct observation and feedback on their teaching from a local coach and participate in an online discussion group. PROGRAM EVALUATION: Sessions were evaluated using a post-session survey. Overall content rating was 4.48 (out of 5). Eighty-nine percent of participants completed all requirements. Of these, 100% agreed that they had gained valuable knowledge and skills. DISCUSSION: The TEACH certificate program provides inexperienced faculty teachers an opportunity to develop core skills. Satisfaction is high. Future research should focus on the impact that this and similar programs have on teaching skills.

Students' goal orientations, perceptions of early clinical experiences and learning outcomes.

CONTEXT: Workplace learning is optimised when learners engage in the activities of the workplace; learner engagement is influenced by workplace affordances and learner agency. Learner agency can be operationalised through achievement goal theory, which explains that students can have different goal orientations as they enter learning situations: mastery (learn and improve), performance approach (demonstrate competence) or performance-avoid (avoid demonstrating incompetence). Mastery-orientated, compared with performance-orientated, students approach curricular experiences as opportunities for developing rather than demonstrating competence. This study explored the relationships among students' achievement goal orientations, workplace affordances and learning outcomes in the context of early clinical experiences. METHODS: Students who completed their preclerkship curricula at four medical schools answered a questionnaire about their personal goal orientation and the perceived goal structure and workplace affordances of their preceptorship experiences. All items used a 5-point scale (1 = strongly disagree/not at all true, 5 = strongly agree/very true). Students were evaluated by their preceptors and completed standardised-patient exams at the end of their pre-clerkship curricula. Analyses included descriptive statistics and mediation analysis. RESULTS: Of 517 students, 296 (57.3%) responded and 253 (85.5%) had linked performance data. Student goal orientation means were: mastery, mean = 4.27 (SD = 0.65); performance-approach, 2.41 (0.76); performance-avoid, 2.84 (0.88). Student goal orientation and performance on preceptor evaluations (PEval) or standardised-patient exams (SPExam) were not significantly related. Perceptions of a mastery-structured curriculum and inviting workplace were associated with higher SPExam (ß = 0.28, p = 0.02) and PEval (ß = 0.51, p = 0.00) scores, respectively. Student mastery goal orientation was positively associated with perceptions of a mastery-structured curriculum (ß = 0.59, p = 0.00) and positive workplace affordances (ß = 0.25-0.29, p ≤ 0.01). CONCLUSIONS: Students held a predominant mastery goal orientation towards their early clinical experiences. Mastery-orientated students perceived preceptorships as mastery-structured with positive workplace affordances, and those perceiving a mastery-structured or inviting preceptorship performed better. Clinical experiences should be structured to emphasise learning rather than demonstration of skills to promote learning outcomes.

Performance of ChatGPT on free-response, clinical reasoning exams.

Importance: Studies show that ChatGPT, a general purpose large language model chatbot, could pass the multiple-choice US Medical Licensing Exams, but the model's performance on open-ended clinical reasoning is unknown. Objective: To determine if ChatGPT is capable of consistently meeting the passing threshold on free-response, case-based clinical reasoning assessments. Design: Fourteen multi-part cases were selected from clinical reasoning exams administered to pre-clerkship medical students between 2019 and 2022. For each case, the questions were run through ChatGPT twice and responses were recorded. Two clinician educators independently graded each run according to a standardized grading rubric. To further assess the degree of variation in ChatGPT's performance, we repeated the analysis on a single high-complexity case 20 times. Setting: A single US medical school. Participants: ChatGPT. Main Outcomes and Measures: Passing rate of ChatGPT's scored responses and the range in model performance across multiple run throughs of a single case. Results: 12 out of the 28 ChatGPT exam responses achieved a passing score (43%) with a mean score of 69% (95% CI: 65% to 73%) compared to the established passing threshold of 70%. When given the same case 20 separate times, ChatGPT's performance on that case varied with scores ranging from 56% to 81%. Conclusions and Relevance: ChatGPT's ability to achieve a passing performance in nearly half of the cases analyzed demonstrates the need to revise clinical reasoning assessments and incorporate artificial intelligence (AI)-related topics into medical curricula and practice.

Developing a national collaborative of medical educators who lead clinical skills courses.

BACKGROUND: The majority of US medical schools now have pre-clerkship clinical skills (PCCS) courses. Course directors for these often logistically complicated courses may be in different medical specialties and, historically, have had few formal opportunities for communication and collaboration with their counterparts at other institutions. As such, we hypothesized that leaders of PCCS courses would benefit from a national network. SUMMARY: In this paper, we outline the methodology used to form a national collaborative from grass roots interest. Over three years, a self-identified eleven-person task force with national representation has created an organization for PCCS course directors from US medical schools called Directors Of Clinical Skills courses (DOCS) that meets annually. CONCLUSIONS: Through iterative presentations at regional and national medical education meetings, we have produced an inventory of educational issues for those developing, administering, and evaluating PCCS courses. Further development of this nascent organization is ongoing. Our process is generalizable.

Deficits in communication and information transfer between hospital-based and primary care physicians: implications for patient safety and continuity of care.

CONTEXT: Delayed or inaccurate communication between hospital-based and primary care physicians at hospital discharge may negatively affect continuity of care and contribute to adverse events. OBJECTIVES: To characterize the prevalence of deficits in communication and information transfer at hospital discharge and to identify interventions to improve this process. DATA SOURCES: MEDLINE (through November 2006), Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews, and hand search of article bibliographies. STUDY SELECTION: Observational studies investigating communication and information transfer at hospital discharge (n = 55) and controlled studies evaluating the efficacy of interventions to improve information transfer (n = 18). DATA EXTRACTION: Data from observational studies were extracted on the availability, timeliness, content, and format of discharge communications, as well as primary care physician satisfaction. Results of interventions were summarized by their effect on timeliness, accuracy, completeness, and overall quality of the information transfer. DATA SYNTHESIS: Direct communication between hospital physicians and primary care physicians occurred infrequently (3%-20%). The availability of a discharge summary at the first postdischarge visit was low (12%-34%) and remained poor at 4 weeks (51%-77%), affecting the quality of care in approximately 25% of follow-up visits and contributing to primary care physician dissatisfaction. Discharge summaries often lacked important information such as diagnostic test results (missing from 33%-63%), treatment or hospital course (7%-22%), discharge medications (2%-40%), test results pending at discharge (65%), patient or family counseling (90%-92%), and follow-up plans (2%-43%). Several interventions, including computer-generated discharge summaries and using patients as couriers, shortened the delivery time of discharge communications. Use of standardized formats to highlight the most pertinent information improved the perceived quality of documents. CONCLUSIONS: Deficits in communication and information transfer at hospital discharge are common and may adversely affect patient care. Interventions such as computer-generated summaries and standardized formats may facilitate more timely transfer of pertinent patient information to primary care physicians and make discharge summaries more consistently available during follow-up care.

Training Future Clinician-Educators: A Track for Family Medicine Residents.

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES: Despite a growing demand for skilled clinician-educators, residents today rarely receive formal training in clinical teaching, curriculum development, administration, leadership, or educational scholarship. The authors describe the development, implementation, and preliminary evaluation of the O'Connor Stanford Leaders in Education Residency (OSLER) track, a novel clinician-educator track within the family medicine residency program affiliated with Stanford University School of Medicine. METHODS: In 2010, the OSLER track was introduced at O'Connor Hospital, a community hospital that houses an 8-8-8 family medicine residency program. Residents who are in good standing can apply to the track at the midpoint of their first postgraduate year. Residents are immersed in a flexible, experience-based, 2.5-year-long curriculum with hands-on teaching activities at its core. To foster skills in educational scholarship, track residents are required to design and complete a scholarly project. RESULTS: A comprehensive evaluation plan is currently in progress. Preliminary data indicates high levels of satisfaction with the track's overall value, impact on core teaching skills, and effect on career trajectory. Residents gained more confidence in core teaching skills as they progressed through the track. Scholarly work output by residents has increased significantly since the track was implemented. The residency program has seen an increased interest from applicants since the track was started, with data suggesting that applicant quality has increased from the pre-track to post-track years. CONCLUSIONS: More research is needed to assess the effectiveness and reproducibility of this clinician-educator track. If proven, this model may be replicated at other academic medical centers.

An Innovative Blended Preclinical Curriculum in Clinical Epidemiology and Biostatistics: Impact on Student Satisfaction and Performance.

PROBLEM: There is little understanding of the impact of teaching clinical epidemiology and biostatistics in a flipped or blended format. At Stanford University School of Medicine, the quantitative medicine (QM) curriculum for first-year students was redesigned to use a blended format, in response to student feedback. APPROACH: The blended QM curriculum introduced in 2013 integrated self-paced, online learning with small-group collaborative learning. The authors analyzed the blended format's impact on student satisfaction and performance, comparing the pilot cohort of students (n = 101) with students who took the traditional curriculum in 2011 and 2012 (n = 178). They also analyzed QM resource utilization in 2013. OUTCOMES: The blended curriculum had a positive impact on satisfaction and mastery of core material. Comparing the 2013 blended cohort with the 2011-2012 traditional cohort, there were significant improvements in student satisfaction ratings (overall, P < .0001; organization, P < .0001; logical sequence, P = .008; value of content, P < .0001). The mean (SD) overall satisfaction rating for small-group sessions increased: 3.40 (1.03) in 2013 versus 2.79 (1.00) in 2011 and 2.83 (1.06) in 2012. Performance on the QM final exam showed no significant changes in 2013 versus 2011 and 2012. The majority of students in 2013 reported using the QM online videos as their primary learning resource (69%-85% across modules). NEXT STEPS: The positive impact of the curricular elements studied will inform continued development of the QM curriculum. Features of the curriculum could serve as a model for future blended courses.

Hospitalist handoffs: a systematic review and task force recommendations.

BACKGROUND: Handoffs are ubiquitous to Hospital Medicine and are considered a vulnerable time for patient safety. PURPOSE: To develop recommendations for hospitalist handoffs during shift change and service change. DATA SOURCES: PubMed (through January 2007), Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) Patient Safety Network, white papers, and hand search of article bibliographies. STUDY SELECTION: Controlled studies evaluating interventions to improve in-hospital handoffs (n = 10). DATA EXTRACTION: Studies were abstracted for design, setting, target, outcomes (including patient-level, staff-level, or system-level outcomes), and relevance to hospitalists. DATA SYNTHESIS: Although there were no studies of hospitalist handoffs, the existing literature from related disciplines and expert opinion support the use of a verbal handoff supplemented with written documentation in a structured format or technology solution. Technology solutions were associated with a reduction in preventable adverse events, improved satisfaction with handoff quality, and improved provider identification. Nursing studies demonstrate that supplementing verbal exchange with a written medium leads to improved retention of information. White papers characterized effective verbal exchange, as focusing on ill patients and actions required, with time for questions and minimal interruptions. In addition, content should be updated daily to ensure communication of the latest clinical information. Using this literature, recommendations for hospitalist handoffs are presented with corresponding levels of evidence. Recommendations were reviewed by hospitalists at the Society of Hospital Medicine (SHM) Annual Meeting and by an interdisciplinary team of expert consultants and were endorsed by the SHM governing board. CONCLUSIONS: The systematic review and resulting recommendations provide hospitalists a starting point from which to improve in-hospital handoffs.