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Phenomenon: Central to competency-based medical education is the need for a seamless developmental continuum of training and practice. Trainees currently experience significant discontinuity in the transition from undergraduate (UME) to graduate medical education (GME). The learner handover is intended to smooth this transition, but little is known about how well this is working from the GME perspective. In an attempt to gather preliminary evidence, this study explores U.S. program directors (PDs) perspective of the learner handover from UME to GME. Approach: Using exploratory qualitative methodology, we conducted semi-structured interviews with 12 Emergency Medicine PDs within the U.S. from October to November, 2020. We asked participants to describe their current perception of the learner handover from UME to GME. Then we performed thematic analysis using an inductive approach. Findings: We identified two main themes: The inconspicuous learner handover and barrier to creating a successful UME to GME learner handover. PDs described the current state of the learner handover as "nonexistent," yet acknowledged that information is transmitted from UME to GME. Participants also highlighted key challenges preventing a successful learner handover from UME to GME. These included: conflicting expectations, issues of trust and transparency, and a dearth of assessment data to actually hand over. Insights: PDs highlight the inconspicuous nature of learner handovers, suggesting that assessment information is not shared in the way it should be in the transition from UME to GME. Challenges with the learner handover demonstrate a lack of trust, transparency, and explicit communication between UME and GME. Our findings can inform how national organizations establish a unified approach to transmitting growth-oriented assessment data and formalize transparent learner handovers from UME to GME.
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Educación de Pregrado en Medicina , Medicina de Emergencia , Internado y Residencia , Humanos , Facultades de Medicina , Educación de Pregrado en Medicina/métodos , Educación de Postgrado en Medicina/métodosRESUMEN
BACKGROUND: Safe and effective physician-to-physician patient handoffs are integral to patient safety. Unfortunately, poor handoffs continue to be a major cause of medical errors. Developing a better understanding of challenges faced by health care providers is critical to address this continued patient safety threat. This study addresses the gap in the literature exploring broad, cross-specialty trainee perspectives around handoffs and provides a set of trainee-informed recommendations for both training programs and institutions. METHODS: Using a constructivist paradigm, the authors conducted a concurrent/embedded mixed method study to investigate trainees' experiences with patient handoffs across Stanford University Hospital, a large academic medical center. The authors designed and administered a survey instrument including Likert-style and open-ended questions to solicit information about trainee experiences from multiple specialties. The authors performed a thematic analysis of open-ended responses. RESULTS: 687/1138 (60.4%) of residents and fellows responded to the survey, representing 46 training programs and over 30 specialties. There was wide variability in handoff content and process, most notably code status not being consistently mentioned a third of the time for patients who were not full code. Supervision and feedback about handoffs were inconsistently provided. Trainees identified multiple health-systems level issues that complicated handoffs and suggested solutions to these threats. Our thematic analysis identified five important aspects of handoffs: (1) handoff elements, (2) health-systems-level factors, (3) impact of the handoff, (4) agency (duty), and (5) blame and shame. CONCLUSIONS: Health systems, interpersonal, and intrapersonal issues affect handoff communication. The authors propose an expanded theoretical framework for effective patient handoffs and provide a set of trainee-informed recommendations for training programs and sponsoring institutions. Cultural and health-systems issues must be prioritized and addressed, as an undercurrent of blame and shame permeates the clinical environment.
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Pase de Guardia , Humanos , Personal de Salud , Hospitales Universitarios , Errores MédicosRESUMEN
The COVID-19 pandemic has exposed a paradox in historical models of medical education: organizations responsible for applying consistent standards for progression have needed to adapt to training environments marked by inconsistency and change. Although some institutions have maintained their traditional requirements, others have accelerated their programs to rush nearly graduated trainees to the front lines. One interpretation of the unplanned shortening of the duration of training programs during a crisis is that standards have been lowered. But it is also possible that these trainees were examined according to the same standards as usual and were judged to have already met them. This paper discusses the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on the current workforce, provides an analysis of how competency-based medical education (CBME) in the context of the pandemic might have mitigated wide-scale disruption, and identifies structural barriers to achieving an ideal state. The paper further calls upon universities, health centres, governments, certifying bodies, regulatory authorities, and health care professionals to work collectively on a truly time-variable model of CBME. The pandemic has made clear that time variability in medical education already exists and should be adopted widely and formally. If our systems today had used a framework of outcome competencies, sequenced progression, tailored learning, focused instruction, and programmatic assessment, we may have been even more nimble in changing our systems to care for our patients with COVID-19.
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COVID-19 , Educación Médica , Educación Basada en Competencias , Curriculum , Humanos , Pandemias , SARS-CoV-2RESUMEN
Medical education is situated within health care and educational organizations that frequently lag in their use of data to learn, develop, and improve performance. How might we leverage competency-based medical education (CBME) assessment data at the individual, program, and system levels, with the goal of redefining CBME from an initiative that supports the development of physicians to one that also fosters the development of the faculty, administrators, and programs within our organizations? In this paper we review the Deliberately Developmental Organization (DDO) framework proposed by Robert Kegan and Lisa Lahey, a theoretical framework that explains how organizations can foster the development of their people. We then describe the DDO's conceptual alignment with CBME and outline how CBME assessment data could be used to spur the transformation of health care and educational organizations into digitally integrated DDOs. A DDO-oriented use of CBME assessment data will require intentional investment into both the digitalization of assessment data and the development of the people within our organizations. By reframing CBME in this light, we hope that educational and health care leaders will see their investments in CBME as an opportunity to spur the evolution of a developmental culture.
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Educación Médica , Médicos , Educación Basada en Competencias , Humanos , AprendizajeRESUMEN
Clinical competency committees (CCCs) are increasingly used within health professions education as their decisions are thought to be more defensible and fairer than those generated by previous training promotion processes. However, as with most group-based processes, it is inevitable that conflict will arise. In this paper the authors explore three ways conflict may arise within a CCC: (1) conflicting data submissions that are presented to the committee, (2) conflicts between members of the committee, and (3) conflicts of interest between a specific committee member and a trainee. The authors describe each of these conflict situations, dissect out the underlying problems, and explore possible solutions based on the current literature.
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Competencia Clínica , Conflicto de Intereses , Procesos de Grupo , Humanos , Relaciones InterpersonalesRESUMEN
Competency-based medical education has been advocated as the future of medical education for nearly a half-century. Inherent to this is the promise that advancement and transitions in training would be defined by readiness to practice rather than by time. Of the logistical problems facing competency-based, time-variable (CBTV) training, enacting time variability may be the largest hurdle to clear. Although it is true that an 'all or nothing' approach to CBTV training would require massive overhauls of both medical education and health care systems, the authors propose that training institutions should gradually evolve within their current environments to incrementally move toward the best version of CBTV training for learners, supervisors, and patients. In support of this evolution, the authors seek to demonstrate the feasibility of advancing toward the goal of realistic CBTV training by detailing examples of successful CBTV training and describing key features of initial steps toward CBTV training implementation.
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COVID-19 , Pandemias , Competencia Clínica , Educación Basada en Competencias , Humanos , SARS-CoV-2RESUMEN
As the global transformation of postgraduate medical training continues, there are persistent calls for program evaluation efforts to understand the impact and outcomes of competency-based medical education (CBME) implementation. The measurement of a complex educational intervention such as CBME is challenging because of the multifaceted nature of activities and outcomes. What is needed, therefore, is an organizational taxonomy to both conceptualize and categorize multiple outcomes. In this manuscript we propose a taxonomy that builds on preceding works to organize CBME outcomes across three domains: focus (educational, clinical), level (micro, meso, macro), and timeline (training, transition to practice, practice). We also provide examples of how to conceptualize outcomes of educational interventions across medical specialties using this taxonomy. By proposing a shared language for outcomes of CBME, we hope that this taxonomy will help organize ongoing evaluation work and catalyze those seeking to engage in the evaluation effort to help understand the impact and outcomes of CBME.
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Curriculum , Educación Médica , Educación Basada en Competencias , Humanos , Lenguaje , Evaluación de Programas y Proyectos de SaludRESUMEN
Health care revolves around trust. Patients are often in a position that gives them no other choice than to trust the people taking care of them. Educational programs thus have the responsibility to develop physicians who can be trusted to deliver safe and effective care, ultimately making a final decision to entrust trainees to graduate to unsupervised practice. Such entrustment decisions deserve to be scrutinized for their validity. This end-of-training entrustment decision is arguably the most important one, although earlier entrustment decisions, for smaller units of professional practice, should also be scrutinized for their validity. Validity of entrustment decisions implies a defensible argument that can be analyzed in components that together support the decision. According to Kane, building a validity argument is a process designed to support inferences of scoring, generalization across observations, extrapolation to new instances, and implications of the decision. A lack of validity can be caused by inadequate evidence in terms of, according to Messick, content, response process, internal structure (coherence) and relationship to other variables, and in misinterpreted consequences. These two leading frameworks (Kane and Messick) in educational and psychological testing can be well applied to summative entrustment decision-making. The authors elaborate the types of questions that need to be answered to arrive at defensible, well-argued summative decisions regarding performance to provide a grounding for high-quality safe patient care.
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Internado y Residencia , Médicos , Competencia Clínica , Educación Basada en Competencias , Toma de Decisiones , Humanos , ConfianzaRESUMEN
There is an urgent need to capture the outcomes of the ongoing global implementation of competency-based medical education (CBME). However, the measurement of downstream outcomes following educational innovations, such as CBME is fraught with challenges stemming from the complexities of medical training, the breadth and variability of inputs, and the difficulties attributing outcomes to specific educational elements. In this article, we present a logic model for CBME to conceptualize an impact pathway relating to CBME and facilitate outcomes evaluation. We further identify six strategies to mitigate the challenges of outcomes measurement: (1) clearly identify the outcome of interest, (2) distinguish between outputs and outcomes, (3) carefully consider attribution versus contribution, (4) connect outcomes to the fidelity and integrity of implementation, (5) pay attention to unanticipated outcomes, and (6) embrace methodological pluralism. Embracing these challenges, we argue that careful and thoughtful evaluation strategies will move us forward in answering the all-important question: Are the desired outcomes of CBME being achieved?
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Educación Basada en Competencias , Educación Médica , HumanosRESUMEN
BACKGROUND: Use of sentinel lymph node biopsy (SLNB) is under-reported by cancer registries' "Scope of Regional Lymph Node Surgery" variable. In 2011, the Surveillance Epidemiology and End Results (SEER) Program recommended against its use to determine extent of axillary surgery, leaving a gap in the utilization of claims data for breast cancer research. The objective was to develop an algorithm using SEER registry and claims data to classify extent of axillary surgery for breast cancer. METHODS: We analyzed data for 24,534 breast cancer patients. CPT codes and number of examined lymph nodes classified the extent of axillary surgery. The final algorithm was validated by comparing the algorithm derived extent of axillary surgery to direct chart review for 100 breast cancer patients treated at our breast center. RESULTS: Using the algorithm, 13% had no axillary surgery, 56% SLNB and 31% axillary lymph node dissection (ALND). SLNB was performed in 77% of node negative patients and ALND in 72% of node positive. In our validation study, concordance between algorithm and direct chart review was 97%. CONCLUSIONS: Given recognized inaccuracies in cancer registries' "Scope of Regional Lymph Node Surgery" variable, these findings have high utility for health services researchers studying breast cancer treatment.
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Neoplasias de la Mama/cirugía , Escisión del Ganglio Linfático , Selección de Paciente , Programa de VERF , Algoritmos , Axila , Neoplasias de la Mama/epidemiología , Bases de Datos Factuales/estadística & datos numéricos , Femenino , Humanos , Mastectomía , Medicare/estadística & datos numéricos , Pronóstico , Biopsia del Ganglio Linfático Centinela , Estados Unidos/epidemiologíaRESUMEN
ABSTRACT: In this commentary, the authors explore the tension of balancing high performance standards in medical education with the acceptability of those standards to stakeholders (e.g., learners and patients). The authors then offer a lens through which this tension might be considered and ways forward that focus on both patient outcomes and learner needs.In examining this phenomenon, the authors argue that high performance standards are often necessary. Societal accountability is key to medical education, with the public demanding that training programs prepare physicians to provide high-quality care. Medical schools and residency programs, therefore, require rigorous standards to ensure graduates are ready to care for patients. At the same time, learners' experience is important to consider. Making sure that performance standards are acceptable to stakeholders supports the validity of assessment decisions.Equity should also be central to program evaluation and validity arguments when considering performance standards. Currently, learners across the continuum are variably prepared for the next phase in training and often face inequities in resource availability to meet high passing standards, which may lead to learner attrition. Many students who face these inequities come from underrepresented or disadvantaged backgrounds and are essential to ensuring a diverse medical workforce to meet the needs of patients and society. When these students struggle, it contributes to the leaky pipeline of more socioeconomically and racially diverse applicants.The authors posit that 4 key factors can balance the tension between high performance standards and stakeholder acceptability: standards that are acceptable and defensible, progression that is time variable, requisite support structures that are uniquely tailored for each learner, and assessment systems that are equitably designed.
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Química Orgánica , Educación Médica , Humanos , Estudiantes , Evaluación de Programas y Proyectos de Salud , Personal de SaludRESUMEN
ABSTRACT: Precision education (PE) leverages longitudinal data and analytics to tailor educational interventions to improve patient, learner, and system-level outcomes. At present, few programs in medical education can accomplish this goal as they must develop new data streams transformed by analytics to drive trainee learning and program improvement. Other professions, such as Major League Baseball (MLB), have already developed extremely sophisticated approaches to gathering large volumes of precise data points to inform assessment of individual performance.In this perspective, the authors argue that medical education-whose entry into precision assessment is fairly nascent-can look to MLB to learn the possibilities and pitfalls of precision assessment strategies. They describe 3 epochs of player assessment in MLB: observation, analytics (sabermetrics), and technology (Statcast). The longest tenured approach, observation, relies on scouting and expert opinion. Sabermetrics brought new approaches to analyzing existing data in a way that better predicted which players would help the team win. Statcast created precise, granular data about highly attributable elements of player performance while helping to account for nonplayer factors that confound assessment such as weather, ballpark dimensions, and the performance of other players. Medical education is progressing through similar epochs marked by workplace-based assessment, learning analytics, and novel measurement technologies. The authors explore how medical education can leverage intersectional concepts of MLB player and medical trainee assessment to inform present and future directions of PE.
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Béisbol , Educación Médica , Humanos , Escolaridad , Lugar de TrabajoRESUMEN
Purpose: Entrustable professional activities (EPAs) are a widely used framework for curriculum and assessment, yet the variability in emergency medicine (EM) training programs mandates the development of EPAs that meet the needs of the specialty as a whole. This requires eliciting and incorporating the perspectives of multiple stakeholders (i.e., faculty, residents, and patients) in the development of EPAs. Without a shared understanding of what a resident must be able to do upon graduation, we run the risk of advancing ill-prepared residents that may provide inconsistent care. Methods: In an effort to address these challenges, beginning in February 2020, the authors assembled an advisory board of 25 EM faculty to draft and reach consensus on a final list of EPAs that can be used across all training programs within the specialty of EM. Using modified Delphi methodology, the authors came to consensus on an initial list of 22 EPAs. The authors presented these EPAs to faculty supervisors, residents, and patients for refinement. The authors collated and analyzed feedback from focus groups of residents and patients using thematic analysis. The EPAs were subsequently refined based on this feedback. Results: Stakeholders in EM residency training endorsed a final revised list of 22 EPAs. Stakeholder focus groups highlighted two main thematic considerations that helped shape the finalized list of EM EPAs: attention to the meaningful nuances of EPA language and contextualizing the EPAs and viewing them developmentally. Conclusions: To foreground all key stakeholders within the EPA process for EM, the authors chose within the development process to draft; come to consensus; and refine EPAs for EM in collaboration with relevant faculty, patient, and resident stakeholders. Each stakeholder group contributed meaningfully to the content and intended implementation of the EPAs. This process may serve as a model for others in developing stakeholder-responsive EPAs.
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Assessment in medical education has evolved through a sequence of eras each centering on distinct views and values. These eras include measurement (e.g., knowledge exams, objective structured clinical examinations), then judgments (e.g., workplace-based assessments, entrustable professional activities), and most recently systems or programmatic assessment, where over time multiple types and sources of data are collected and combined by competency committees to ensure individual learners are ready to progress to the next stage in their training. Significantly less attention has been paid to the social context of assessment, which has led to an overall erosion of trust in assessment by a variety of stakeholders including learners and frontline assessors. To meaningfully move forward, the authors assert that the reestablishment of trust should be foundational to the next era of assessment. In our actions and interventions, it is imperative that medical education leaders address and build trust in assessment at a systems level. To that end, the authors first review tenets on the social contextualization of assessment and its linkage to trust and discuss consequences should the current state of low trust continue. The authors then posit that trusting and trustworthy relationships can exist at individual as well as organizational and systems levels. Finally, the authors propose a framework to build trust at multiple levels in a future assessment system; one that invites and supports professional and human growth and has the potential to position assessment as a fundamental component of renegotiating the social contract between medical education and the health of the public.
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Curriculum , Educación Médica , Humanos , Educación Basada en Competencias , Lugar de Trabajo , ConfianzaRESUMEN
Background: Precision medicine, sometimes referred to as personalized medicine, is rapidly changing the possibilities for how people will engage health care in the near future. As technology to support precision medicine exponentially develops, there is an urgent need to proactively improve our understanding of precision medicine and pose important research questions (RQs) related to its inclusion in the education and training of future emergency physicians. Methods: A seven-step process was employed to develop a research agenda exploring the intersection of precision and emergency medicine education/training. A literature search of articles about precision medicine was conducted first, which informed the creation of future four scenarios in which trainees and practicing physicians regularly discuss and incorporate precision medicine tools into their discussions and work. Based on these futurist narratives, potential education RQs were generated by an expert panel. A total of 59 initial questions were subsequently categorized and refined to a priority list through a nominal group voting method. The top/priority questions were presented at the 2023 SAEM Consensus Conference on Precision Medicine, Austin, Texas, for further input. Results: Eight high-value education RQs were developed, reflecting a holistic view of the challenges and opportunities for precision medicine education in the knowledge, skills, and attitudes relevant to emergency medicine. These questions contend with topics such as most effective pedagogical methods; intended resulting outcomes and behaviors; the generational differences between practicing emergency physicians, educators, and future trainees; and the desires and expectations of patients. Conclusions: Emergency medicine and emergency physicians must be prepared to understand precision medicine and incorporate this information into their "toolbox" of thinking, problem solving, and communication with patients and colleagues. This research agenda on how best to educate future emergency physicians in the use of personalized data to provide optimal health care is the focus of this article.
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Background: It is essential that medical education (MedEd) fellows achieve desired outcomes prior to graduation. Despite the increase in postgraduate MedEd fellowships in emergency medicine (EM), there is no consistently applied competency framework. We sought to develop entrustable professional activities (EPAs) for EM MedEd fellows. Methods: From 2021 to 2022, we used a modified Delphi method to achieve consensus for EPAs. EM education experts generated an initial list of 173 EPAs after literature review. In each Delphi round, panelists were asked to make a binary choice of whether to include the EPA. We determined an inclusion threshold of 70% agreement a priori. After the first round, given the large number of EPAs meeting inclusion threshold, panelists were instructed to vote whether each EPA should be included in the "20 most important" EPAs for a MedEd fellowship. Modifications were made between rounds based on expert feedback. We calculated descriptive statistics. Results: Seventeen experts completed four Delphi rounds each with 100% response. After Round 1, 87 EPAs were eliminated and two were combined. Following Round 2, 46 EPAs were eliminated, seven were combined, and three were included in the final list. After the third round, one EPA was eliminated and 13 were included. After the fourth round, 11 EPAs were eliminated. The final list consisted of 16 EPAs in domains of career development, education theory and methods, research and scholarship, and educational program administration. Conclusions: We developed a list of 16 EPAs for EM MedEd fellowships, the first step in implementing competency-based MedEd.
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OBJECTIVES: Precision medicine is data-driven health care tailored to individual patients based on their unique attributes, including biologic profiles, disease expressions, local environments, and socioeconomic conditions. Emergency medicine (EM) has been peripheral to the precision medicine discourse, lacking both a unified definition of precision medicine and a clear research agenda. We convened a national consensus conference to build a shared mental model and develop a research agenda for precision EM. METHODS: We held a conference to (1) define precision EM, (2) develop an evidence-based research agenda, and (3) identify educational gaps for current and future EM clinicians. Nine preconference workgroups (biomedical ethics, data science, health professions education, health care delivery and access, informatics, omics, population health, sex and gender, and technology and digital tools), comprising 84 individuals, garnered expert opinion, reviewed relevant literature, engaged with patients, and developed key research questions. During the conference, each workgroup shared how they defined precision EM within their domain, presented relevant conceptual frameworks, and engaged a broad set of stakeholders to refine precision EM research questions using a multistage consensus-building process. RESULTS: A total of 217 individuals participated in this initiative, of whom 115 were conference-day attendees. Consensus-building activities yielded a definition of precision EM and key research questions that comprised a new 10-year precision EM research agenda. The consensus process revealed three themes: (1) preeminence of data, (2) interconnectedness of research questions across domains, and (3) promises and pitfalls of advances in health technology and data science/artificial intelligence. The Health Professions Education Workgroup identified educational gaps in precision EM and discussed a training roadmap for the specialty. CONCLUSIONS: A research agenda for precision EM, developed with extensive stakeholder input, recognizes the potential and challenges of precision EM. Comprehensive clinician training in this field is essential to advance EM in this domain.
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Medicina de Emergencia , Medicina de Precisión , Humanos , Medicina de Emergencia/educación , Medicina de Precisión/métodos , Atención Dirigida al Paciente , Sociedades MédicasRESUMEN
BACKGROUND: American College of Surgeons Oncology Group (ACOSOG) Z0011 demonstrated that eligible breast cancer patients with positive sentinel lymph nodes (SLN) could be spared an axillary lymph node dissection (ALND) without sacrificing survival or local control. Although heralded as a ''practice-changing trial,'' some argue that the stringent inclusion criteria limit the trial's clinical significance. The objective was to assess the potential impact of ACOSOG Z0011 on axillary surgical management of Medicare patients and examine current practice patterns. METHODS: Medicare beneficiaries aged C66 years with nonmetastatic invasive breast cancer diagnosed from 2001 to 2007 were identified from the Surveillance, Epidemiology and End Results-Medicare database (n = 59,431). Eligibility for ACOSOG Z0011 was determined: SLN mapping, tumor\5 cm, no neoadjuvant treatment, breast conservation; number of positive nodes was determined. Actual surgical axillary management for eligible patients was assessed. RESULTS: Twelve percent (6,942/59,431) underwent SLN mapping and were node positive. Overall, 2,637 patients (4.4 % (2,637/59,431) of the total cohort, but 38 % (2,637/6,942) of patients with SLN mapping and positive nodes) met inclusion criteria for ACOSOG Z0011, had 1 or 2 positive lymph nodes, and could have been spared an ALND. Of these 2,637 patients, 46 % received a completion ALND and 54 % received only SLN biopsy. CONCLUSIONS: Widespread implementation of ACOSOG Z0011 trial results could potentially spare 38 % of older breast cancer patients who undergo SLN mapping with positive lymph nodes an ALND. However, 54 % of these patients are already managed with SLN biopsy alone, lessening the impact of this trial on clinical practice in older breast cancer patients.
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Neoplasias de la Mama/cirugía , Escisión del Ganglio Linfático , Ganglios Linfáticos/cirugía , Mastectomía , Biopsia del Ganglio Linfático Centinela , Anciano , Anciano de 80 o más Años , Axila , Neoplasias de la Mama/patología , Ensayos Clínicos como Asunto , Femenino , Estudios de Seguimiento , Humanos , Ganglios Linfáticos/patología , Medicare , Estadificación de Neoplasias , Pronóstico , Sociedades Médicas , Estados UnidosRESUMEN
Consensus methods such as the Delphi and nominal group techniques are increasingly utilized within medical education research. This educator's blueprint paper provides practical strategies regarding five key steps for ensuring best practices when using consensus methods. These strategies include deciding which consensus method is best, developing the initial questionnaire, identifying the participants, determining the number of rounds and consensus threshold, and describing and justifying any modifications. These strategies will help guide education researchers on their next study using consensus methods.
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PURPOSE: The process of screening and selecting trainees for postgraduate training has evolved significantly in recent years, yet remains a daunting task. Postgraduate training directors seek ways to feasibly and defensibly select candidates, which has resulted in an explosion of literature seeking to identify root causes for the problems observed in postgraduate selection and generate viable solutions. The authors therefore conducted a scoping review to analyze the problems and priorities presented within the postgraduate selection literature to explore practical implications and present a research agenda. METHOD: Between May 2021 and February 2022, the authors searched PubMed, EMBASE, Web of Science, ERIC, and Google Scholar for English language literature published after 2000. Articles that described postgraduate selection were eligible for inclusion. 2,273 articles were ultimately eligible for inclusion. Thematic analysis was performed on a subset of 100 articles examining priorities and problems within postgraduate selection. Articles were sampled to ensure broad thematic and geographical variation across the breadth of articles that were eligible for inclusion. RESULTS: Five distinct perspectives or value statements were identified in the thematic analysis: (1) Using available metrics to predict performance in postgraduate training; (2) identifying the best applicants via competitive comparison; (3) seeking alignment between applicant and program in the selection process; (4) ensuring diversity, mitigation of bias, and equity in the selection process; and (5) optimizing the logistics or mechanics of the selection process. CONCLUSIONS: This review provides insight into the framing and value statements authors use to describe postgraduate selection within the literature. The identified value statements provide a window into the assumptions and subsequent implications of viewing postgraduate selection through each of these lenses. Future research must consider the outcomes and consequences of the value statement chosen and the impact on current and future approaches to postgraduate selection.