Dual Learning in an Emergency Medicine Clerkship Improves Student Performance

Abstract

, Abstract-Background: The emergency department (ED) is an ideal environment to teach learners about the ''undifferentiated patient.'' Student learning may be inconsistent because of inherent variability in the ED. Previous research has suggested that standardizing the emergency medicine (EM) clerkship by implementing didactics and requiring students to see patients with particular chief complaints improves educational outcomes. Objective: To compare knowledge acquisition after a new curriculum to the traditional curriculum. Methods: This was a prospective, quasiexperimental study of senior medical students in an EM clerkship. Students were assigned to the dual learning (DL) group or standard learning (SL) groups based on month of rotation. All were required to see patients with 10 specific chief complaints and were lent an EM textbook. The SL group was instructed to read about the required cases. The DL group attended a 2-hour didactic session covering 5 of the 10 required cases. All students completed an identical pre-and postclerkship multiple choice knowledge test. Results: Data from 51 medical students (DL = 27; SL = 24) were analyzed. Mean pretest scores were comparable between groups. A 2 (groups) by 2 (sessions) mixed-design analysis of variance yielded a significant group by session interaction effect (p < 0.001). The DL group significantly increased its mean score from 8.

“Not just a checkbox”: A qualitative study of the resident scholarly experience

“…Understanding that scholarly work can improve clinical skills may encourage program leadership to deepen this experience for all trainees, supporting a multimodal approach to education, which can augment learning. 31 This study also demonstrated that scholarly work impacts career planning and achievement. Our participants felt a strong sense that their scholarly work in residency informed their future career aspirations.…”

Critical Appraisal of Emergency Medicine Educational Research: The Best Publications of 2015

“…A total of 434 papers and abstracts satisfied the search criteria, and 61 papers met the inclusion criteria . The authors scored these 61 manuscripts, and the 10 highest scoring quantitative and two qualitative articles are reviewed below, in alphabetical order by first author's last name.…”

“…Experimental (hypothesis testing) studies declined in 2015 from 36% of the total to 15% of all reviewed studies . Notably, four of these were articles highlighted for excellence and represent 15% of the featured studies. Six studies (10%) involved qualitative methodology of which two were highlighted .…”

“…The study populations included medical students (36%), residents (54%), and a variety of others (attending physicians, nurses, interprofessional teams, fellows, midlevel providers, paramedics, validity evidence, and department flow).…”

“…The biggest gain in topic for study was assessment and competency, likely in an attempt for programs to meet stipulated benchmarks of the Next Accreditation System. Forty articles (66%) and 83% of the highlighted articles were in this broad category. As usual, some articles focused on pediatric topics .…”