A metacognitive confidence calibration (MCC) tool to help medical students scaffold diagnostic reasoning in decision-making during high-fidelity patient simulations.

The purpose of this study was to 1) help novice students scaffold problem-solving and engage safely in the deliberate practice of diagnostic reasoning and medical decision-making in real time; 2) assess how accurately students gather and apply data in medical reasoning and treatment during high-fidelity patient simulations (HFPSs); 3) identify students' scientific misconceptions related to the case; 4) promote student metacognitive processing, self-assessment, and self-efficacy; and 5) facilitate the explicit calibration of student confidence in deliberate reasoning with patient outcomes. In a mixed-method design, a metacognitive calibration self-assessing (MCC) survey tool was applied to HFPS (n = 80, 20 teams of 6 medical students) and semistructured interviews were conducted with faculty (n = 5). When scored by faculty with a rubric, the mean student accuracy ranged from 23% to 74%, whereas their self-assessment of confidence ranged from 71% to 86%. This result revealed overconfidence bias in novice students regarding the correctness of their wrong responses. The most common misconception identified was inverting cause and effect: metabolic acidosis was pointed to as the cause of the patient's problems rather than a consequence of untreated diabetes mellitus. The most common treatment error was overtreatment, with unnecessary added medication. Interviews with faculty suggested that the MCC tool improved the team process by slowing students down, requiring them to think through their answers, and that overall the tool improved their critical thinking. This study demonstrated the feasibility of using a metacognitive confidence calibration tool to assist novice students in learning safely to make deliberate diagnostic reasoning and decisions on patient care in real time during complex simulations while observing objectively their levels of psychological confidence against patient outcomes.NEW & NOTEWORTHY This study demonstrates the feasibility of a metacognitive confidence calibration tool (MCC) to assess and promote novices in the learning of diagnostic reasoning and treatment decisions on patient care in real time during high-fidelity patient simulations while comparing confidence and accuracy data and identifying students' scientific misconceptions. Results revealed the presence of overconfidence bias, overtreatment, and the misconception of metabolic acidosis as the cause of the patient's problems rather than a consequence of untreated diabetes mellitus.

Simulation as an ethical imperative and epistemic responsibility for the implementation of medical guidelines in health care.

Guidelines orient best practices in medicine, yet, in health care, many real world constraints limit their optimal realization. Since guideline implementation problems are not systematically anticipated, they will be discovered only post facto, in a learning curve period, while the already implemented guideline is tweaked, debugged and adapted. This learning process comes with costs to human health and quality of life. Despite such predictable hazard, the study and modeling of medical guideline implementation is still seldom pursued. In this article we argue that to systematically identify, predict and prevent medical guideline implementation errors is both an epistemic responsibility and an ethical imperative in health care, in order to properly provide beneficence, minimize or avoid harm, show respect for persons, and administer justice. Furthermore, we suggest that implementation knowledge is best achieved technically by providing simulation modeling studies to anticipate the realization of medical guidelines, in multiple contexts, with system and scenario analysis, in its alignment with the emerging field of implementation science and in recognition of learning health systems. It follows from both claims that it is an ethical imperative and an epistemic responsibility to simulate medical guidelines in context to minimize (avoidable) harm in health care, before guideline implementation.

[Factors associated with perinatal morbidity and mortality in a sample of public and private maternity centers in the City of Rio de Janeiro, 1999-2001]. / Fatores associados à morbi-mortalidade perinatal em uma amostra de maternidades públicas e privadas do Município do Rio de Janeiro, 1999-2001.

This study compares socio-demographic factors, mothers' biological characteristics, and quality of care at maternity hospitals in the City of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. A sample of 10,072 post-partum women in 47 hospitals was selected. Data were collected by interviewing mothers in the immediate post-partum and from medical records. The chi2 test was used to analyze homogeneity of ratios. Significant differences were found between patients in public and private hospitals in relation to family support, healthy habits during pregnancy, reproductive history, access to and satisfaction with prenatal care and delivery, and particularly adverse effects in the newborns. Private maternity hospitals showed better results, although they displayed excessive cesarean and neonatal inter-hospital transfer rates. The stratum consisting of public Federal and State maternity hospitals received women with greater morbidity, had lower neonatal transfer rates, and received a more positive assessment by clients of the Unified National Health System (SUS). Private maternity centers contracted out by the SUS were the ones that most refused treatment to patients, leading to delays in patient care for delivery.

Fatores associados à morbi-mortalidade perinatal em uma amostra de maternidades públicas e privadas do Município do Rio de Janeiro, 1999-2001 / Factors associated with perinatal morbidity and mortality in a sample of public and private maternity centers in the City of Rio de Janeiro, 1999-2001

Este estudo compara os fatores sócio-demográficos, características biológicas das mães e a qualidade da assistência prestada em maternidades do Município do Rio de Janeiro. Participaram da amostra 10.072 gestantes que se hospitalizaram para o parto em 47 instituições selecionadas, no período 1999-2001. Dados foram coletados de entrevistas com as mães no pós-parto e de consulta aos prontuários médicos. Utilizou-se o teste chi2 para analisar a homogeneidade das proporções. São diferenciadas as condições de vida, de atenção ao parto e nascimento no Município do Rio de Janiero, sendo mais favoráveis no grupo social que utiliza os serviços de saúde das maternidades privadas, embora persistindo ali uma excessiva proporção de cesáreas e de transferência de recém-nascidos. O estrato composto pelas maternidades federais e municipais recebe a clientela materna e infantil com maior morbi-mortalidade, oferece acompanhamento de familiares na internação, obtendo das mães uma avaliação da atenção recebida mais positiva do que o outro segmento do SUS. As maternidades do estrato 2, representadas majoritariamente pelas instituições particulares conveniadas com o SUS, são as que mais recusam parturientes, produzindo um retardo no acompanhamento do trabalho de parto.