The moment I made the error—an unfathomable vaginal laceration caused by my hands during the vacuum-assisted delivery—it felt as if a massive floodlight, centered right over my head, descended on me. All eyes in the room, aghast at my error and its outcome, bore straight through me. A rush of anxiety and fear flushed down …
Continue reading To Pull Back the Curtain on Shame in Medical Education, I Had to Start With Myself
Photo courtesy of Thomas Owen and Teresa Chan. “Emergency department gridlock is in effect.” I used to hear this nearly every day as a clinical clerk, but at first, I had no idea what it really meant. Clinical training starts with an emphasis on the individual patient, as you explore one case at a time …
Continue reading GridlockED: A Serious Game for Teaching About Multipatient Environments
By: Teresa Chan, MD, FRCPC, MHPE T. Chan is assistant professor, Division of Emergency Medicine, Department of Medicine, Michael G. DeGroote School of Medicine & Faculty of Health Sciences, and program director, Clinician Educator Area of Focused Competence Program, McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. “We need a doctor in Resusc 1 STAT!” “I’m worried that …
Continue reading Managing Chaos: Lessons Learned From the Emergency Department
By: William Ventres, MD, MA, clinical attending, Department of Family and Preventive Medicine, University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences College of Medicine; Jay D. Kravitz, MD, MPH, assistant professor (retired), Department of Public Health and Preventive Medicine, Oregon Health & Science University; and Shafik Dharamsi, PhD, dean, College of Health Sciences, University of Texas at …
Continue reading PEARLS+: Putting the Social Determinants of Health into Practice
By: Colin P. West, MD, PhD, Eduardo F. Abbott, MD, and David A. Cook, MD, MHPE Basic statistical results, including P values, confidence intervals, and power analyses, are variably reported in scientific publications and frequently misunderstood or misapplied. In our current article, Abbott et al, we examined the current prevalence and evolution over time in …
By Mohamed Al-Eraky, MD, PhD M. Al-Eraky is assistant professor of medical education, University of Dammam, Saudi Arabia, and a founding member, Medical Education Development Centre, Zagazig University, Egypt. In our recent article, my colleagues and I advocate the significance of cultural competency of physicians. The leading character in our vignettes, Amany, has encountered challenging …
Editor’s Note: For more on this topic, check out the January issue of Academic Medicine. By: David Price, MD, FAAFP, FACEHP, senior vice president, American Board of Medical Specialties (ABMS) Research and Education Foundation, and executive director, ABMS Multi-Specialty Portfolio Approval Program Medical licensure and Board Certification mean very different things for physicians practicing in …
Continue reading Clarifying the Difference Between Medical Licensure and Board Certification
By: Mark Cummings, PhD, associate dean (emeritus), Michigan State University College of Osteopathic Medicine, East Lansing, Michigan, and consultant, Germane Solutions, Dayton, Ohio. In my 35 years in medical education, I have worked for six years at a medical accreditation agency and for more than twenty years as a consultant/evaluator for both regional (North Central …
By: Bruce H. Campbell, MD, professor of otolaryngology and faculty member, Center for Bioethics and Medical Humanities, Medical College of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Dr. Campbell blogs at Reflections in a Head Mirror. Writing is the best way to talk without being interrupted. -Jules Renard Several years ago, a senior medical student was struggling with …
Continue reading The Personal Statement: Helping Medical Students Put Pen to Paper
Editor’s Note: This post is the second of two on the topic of competency-based medical education. Read the first post here. By: Robert Englander, MD, MPH, Terri Cameron, MA, Amy Addams, Jan Bull, MP, and Joshua Jacobs, MD Dr. Englander is the former senior director of competency-based learning and assessment at the Association of American …
