The influence of the New Pathway curriculum on Harvard medical students

Abstract

Students in the new curriculum learned differently, acquired distinctive knowledge, skills, and attitudes, and underwent a more satisfying and challenging preclinical medical school experience without loss of biomedical competence. These findings should encourage other schools to consider such a curriculum.

Use of critical incident reports in medical education

“…74 After 2 years in a program combining critical reflection with experiential learning in small groups, medical students in Harvard's New Pathway project were significantly more adept at patient-centered interviewing in blindly judged videotaped interviews. 75 Israeli family physicians taught in reflective Balint groups plus skills-training using role plays achieved higher patient-satisfaction compared with controls. 76 Evidence thus supports the conclusion that reflective learning similar to that achieved by using critical incident reports combined with experiential learning methods improves educational outcomes.…”

“…[66][67][68][69][70][71] Randomized trials have generally measured medical educational outcomes in programs using a combination of educational interventions. [72][73][74][75][76] Whereas randomized trials have looked at programs using reflective learning using similar methods, none specifically measured outcomes related to critical incident reports per se. Smith et al 72,73 documented improved patient satisfaction from intensive training of residents using experiential methods with feedback and reflection.…”

Etude d’impact de séances d’entraînement à des exercices de dossiers cliniques simulés sur les performances d’étudiants à un examen national

“…Tableau 1). Même si l'efficacité des programmes d'enseignement basés sur la résolution de problèmes n'est pas aujourd'hui complètement prouvée 26,27 , il semble que la répétition d'une évaluation formative conduite avec des outils similaires à ceux de l'évaluation sommative 28 soit susceptible d'améliorer les performances de l'étudiant à deux niveaux bien distincts : -l'acquisition d'une expertise par la confrontation à des problèmes complexes toujours différents, stimulant la génération précoce d'hypothèses, concept repris par Kassirer 29 , permet des apprentissages contextualisés successifs et conduit à un rodage des compétences faisant appel à des connaissances conditionnelles. La gestion de la complexité des cas soumis permet également aux étu-diants de se confronter à l'incertitude où plusieurs attitudes diagnostiques et/ou thérapeutiques restent possibles.…”

A new era of dental education at the University of Sydney, Australia

“…Team work and communication are recognized as increasingly important for the dental team as well as for all health professionals. There is evidence from the medical and other literature that suggests 6,11,[13][14][15][16] that problem-based learning (PBL) is effective in developing these skills.…”