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This article describes the need for health professions educators to consider their and others' epistemologies in their work. It introduces four categories of epistemic beliefs and discusses common topics and their relationships to epistemological traditions, including how they can conflict with one another. It also suggests a mechanism for surfacing and managing epistemological tensions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: Virtual care (VC) is an accepted modality of care delivery, and shared decision‐making (SDM) benefits patients with rheumatologic and chronic conditions (RCCs). Unfortunately, research suggests reduced quality of SDM during VC. This study explores the benefits and shortcomings of SDM regarding RCCs during VC with suggestions for optimally using VC during SDM. Methods: Following Stiggelbout's framework for SDM, we conducted focus groups of patients with RCCs and providers to understand their experiences with SDM during VC, probing for facilitating and challenging factors. We conducted content analysis of the transcripts, defining themes, and inductively reasoned to identify relationships among themes. We summarized the facilitators, barriers, and opportunities for improving SDM during VC that participants proposed. Results: Virtual SDM shares several similarities with in‐person practice, as both draw upon trusting patient‐provider relationships, following the same general steps, and relying on effective communication. VC presents solutions for known barriers to in‐person SDM, expanding time for making decisions and access to care. Technology and virtual health systems introduce new barriers to SDM, and participants list opportunities for overcoming these concerns. Conclusion: VC is a tool that can enhance and even support superior SDM compared with in‐person visits when implemented successfully, a condition requiring the development of nuanced skills to correctly identify when and how to best use VC for SDM as well as technology and health care structures that integrate SDM into VC. Therefore, patients, providers, insurance carriers, and policy makers all contribute to the success of SDM among RCCs during VC. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

PhenomenonMoral distress, which occurs when someone's moral integrity is seriously compromised because they feel unable to act in accordance with their core values and obligations, is an increasingly important concern for physicians. Due in part to limited understanding of the root causes of moral distress, little is known about which approaches are most beneficial for mitigating physicians' distress. Our objective was to describe system-level factors in United States (U.S.) healthcare that contribute to moral distress among pediatric hospitalist attendings and pediatric residents. ApproachIn this qualitative study, we conducted one-on-one semi-structured interviews with pediatric hospitalist attendings and pediatric residents from 4 university-affiliated, freestanding children's hospitals in the U.S. between August 2019 and February 2020. Data were coded with an iteratively developed codebook, categorized into themes, and then synthesized. FindingsWe interviewed 22 hospitalists and 18 residents. Participants described in detail how the culture of medicine created a context that cultivated moral distress. Norms of medical education and the practice of medicine created conflicts between residents' strong sense of professional responsibility to serve the best interests of their patients and the expectations of a hierarchical system of decision-making. The corporatization of the U.S. healthcare system created administrative and financial pressures that conflicted with the moral responsibility felt by both residents and hospitalists to provide the care that their patients and families needed. InsightsThese findings highlight the critical role of systemic sources of moral distress. These findings suggest that system-level interventions must supplement existing interventions that target individual health care providers. Preventing and managing moral distress will require a broad approach that addresses systemic drivers, such as the corporatization of medicine, which are entrenched in the culture of medicine. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: Increases in vaccine hesitancy continue to threaten the landscape of public health. Literature provides recommendations for vaccine communication and highlights the importance of patient trust, yet few studies have examined medical student perspectives on vaccine hesitancy in clinical settings. Therefore, we aimed to explore medical student experiences encountering vaccine hesitancy, mistrust, and personal biases, with the goal of informing medical student education. Methods: A health disparities course including simulated clinical scenarios required students to complete a written reflection. We sorted reflections written in 2014-2016 to identify common topics and used inductive thematic analysis to identify themes relevant to vaccine hesitancy by group consensus. Results: Our sample included 84 de-identified essays sorted into three non-exclusive topics: vaccine hesitancy (n=42), mistrust (n=34), and personal bias (n=39). We identified four themes within medical students' reflections: 1) Building a Relationship, including emphasis on patient-centred approaches; 2) Preparedness and Need to Prepare for Future Encounters, including highlighting gaps in medical education; 3) Reactions to Encountering Hesitant Patients, including frustration; 4) Insights for Providing Information and Developing a Plan with Hesitant Patients, including approaches to presenting knowledge. Conclusion: Reflections in the context of simulated encounters and discussion are useful in students identifying their preparedness for vaccine discussion with patients. Student reflections can assist educators in identifying missing educational frameworks for particular scenarios such as vaccine hesitancy. Without a structured framework regarding addressing vaccine hesitancy, students draw upon other skills that may contradict recommended practices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Discusses how a parent advisory process was used to write professional-education competencies and develop teaching strategies for a military medical school. Includes recommendations for involving parents of young children with special needs in successful advisory activities. (Author/CR)

Assessing competence for teamwork is a challenging task. Neverthesless, health professions training programs are asked to assure collaborative competency in their learners. Interprofessional education (IPE) programs seek tools to assess team member effectiveness and demonstrate collaborative competency. The Comprehensive Assessment of Team Member Effectiveness (CATME), originally developed for use in engineering, has been applied in various learning settings, with limited use in IPE. This paper presents validity evidence in 4 domains (content, response processes, internal structure, and relations to other variables) for the use of the CATME in a classroom-based IPE course taught with Team-Based Learning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract Background There are no empirically-grounded criteria or tools to define or benchmark the quality of outpatient clinical documentation. Outpatient clinical notes document care, communicate treatment plans and support patient safety, medical education, medico-legal investigations and reimbursement. Accurately describing and assessing quality of clinical documentation is a necessary improvement in an increasingly team-based healthcare delivery system. In this paper we describe the quality of outpatient clinical notes from the perspective of multiple stakeholders. Methods Using purposeful sampling for maximum diversity, we conducted focus groups and individual interviews with clinicians, nursing and ancillary staff, patients, and healthcare administrators at six federal health care facilities between 2009 and 2011. All sessions were audio-recorded, transcribed and qualitatively analyzed using open, axial and selective coding. Results The 163 participants included 61 clinicians, 52 nurse/ancillary staff, 31 patients and 19 administrative staff. Three organizing themes emerged: 1) characteristics of quality in clinical notes, 2) desired elements within the clinical notes and 3) system supports to improve the quality of clinical notes. We identified 11 codes to describe characteristics of clinical notes, 20 codes to describe desired elements in quality clinical notes and 11 codes to describe clinical system elements that support quality when writing clinical notes. While there was substantial overlap between the aspects of quality described by the four stakeholder groups, only clinicians and administrators identified ease of translation into billing codes as an important characteristic of a quality note. Only patients rated prioritization of their medical problems as an aspect of quality. Nurses included care and education delivered to the patient, information added by the patient, interdisciplinary information, and infection alerts as important content. Conclusions Perspectives of these four stakeholder groups provide a comprehensive description of quality in outpatient clinical documentation. The resulting description of characteristics and content necessary for quality notes provides a research-based foundation for assessing the quality of clinical documentation in outpatient health care settings.

Primary care forms a critical part of pediatricians' practices, yet the most effective ways to teach primary care during residency are not known. We established a new primary care curriculum based on Malcolm Knowles' theory of andragogy, with brief clinical content that is easily accessible and available in different formats. We used Kern's model to create a curriculum. In 2013, we implemented weekly e-mails with links to materials on our learning management system, including moderators' curricular content, resident-developed quizzes, and podcasts. After 3 years, we evaluated the curriculum with resident focus groups, retrospective pre-/post-resident surveys, faculty feedback, a review of materials accessed, and resident attendance. From content analysis of focus groups we learned that residents found the curriculum beneficial, but it was not always possible to do the pre-work. The resident survey, with a response rate of 87% (71 of 82), showed that residents perceived improvement in 37 primary care clinical skills, with differences from 0.64 to 1.46 for scales 1–5 (P <.001 for all). Faculty feedback was positive regarding curriculum organization and structure, but patient care often precluded devoting time to discussing the curriculum. In other ways, our results were disappointing: 51% of residents did not access the curriculum materials, 51% did not open their e-mails, only 37% completed any of the quizzes, and they attended a weekly conference 46% of the time. Although residents accessed the curriculum less than expected, their self-assessments reflect perceptions of improvement in their clinical skills after implementation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents guidelines to help clinical teachers assess the performance of learners/medical students in the pediatric care setting. Topics discussed include the benefits of assessing learners' abilities and knowledge, strategies for assessment for learning including eliciting goals, using direct observation and assessing while teaching, and how the reporter, interpreter, manager and educator (RIME) framework can help clinical teachers in assessing learners' competence.

Abstract: Background/Objectives: Pediatricians manage skin conditions such as atopic dermatitis (AD) but report that their dermatologic training is inadequate. Online modules may enhance medical education when sufficient didactic or clinical teaching experiences are lacking. We assessed whether an online module about AD improved pediatric residents’ knowledge and changed their clinical management of AD. Methods: Target and control cohorts of pediatric residents from two institutions were recruited. Target subjects took a 30‐question test about AD early in their residency, reviewed the online module, and repeated the test 6 months and 1 year later. The control subjects, who had 1 year of clinical experience but had not reviewed the online module, also took the test. The mean percentage of correct answers was calculated and compared using two‐sided, two‐sample independent t tests and repeated‐measures analysis of variance. For a subset of participants, clinical documentation from AD encounters was reviewed and 13 practice behaviors were compared using the Fisher exact test. Results: Twenty‐five subjects in the target cohort and 29 subjects in the control cohort completed the study. The target cohort improved from 18.0 ± 3.2 to 23.4 ± 3.4 correctly answered questions over 1 year (P < .001). This final value was greater than that of the control cohort (20.7 ± 4.5; P = .01). Meaningful differences in practice behaviors were not seen. Conclusion: Pediatric residents who reviewed an online module about AD demonstrated statistically significant improvement in disease‐specific knowledge over time and had statistically significantly higher scores than controls. Online dermatology education may effectively supplement traditional clinical teaching. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article offers a framework for coaching medical students to understand clinical relevance and increase their efficiency in patient care. Topics discussed include challenges faced by medical students when moving from the classroom to the clinical setting, a key challenge for clinical teachers, and a discussion on priming students to focus on pertinent information during clinical encounters.

The article provides information on entrustable professional activities (EPAs), which provide a framework for describing what medical students are expected to be able to do before graduation from medical school. Topics include how entrustment decisions are made, how to teach and assess each EPAs in a busy clinical setting, and why the framework can assist practicing physicians in teaching.

The article provides tips to help busy clinicians incorporate bedside teaching into inpatient and outpatient care. Topics covered include ways how clinical teachers prepare students for bedside teaching, questions that could be asked during an encounter with a patient in respiratory distress, and the use of clinical encounters to model and teach anticipatory guidance.

The article focuses on elements under the control of individual teachers in a learning environment and how clinical teachers can foster a positive learning environment. Topics discussed include the role of teachers in giving students practical tips in communicating with patients and families, the need for students to be oriented about expectations, objectives and logistics when starting a clinical experience and how teachers can enhance the learning environment by being positive role models.

Fathers play a critical role in children’s development; similarly, fatherhood positively affects men’s health. Among the larger population of fathers relatively little is known about the parenting knowledge of urban, African American fathers. Focusing on urban, African American fathers, the objectives of this study were to (1) understand the primary sources from which fathers learn about parenting, (2) determine where and how fathers prefer to receive future parenting education, and (3) explore the information perceived as most valuable to fathers and how this compares with the recommended anticipatory guidance (Bright Futures-based) delivered during well visits. Five focus groups, with a total of 21 participants, were conducted with urban fathers at a community-based organization. Study eligibility included being more than18 years old, English speaking, and having at least one child 0 to 5 years old. During the focus groups, fathers were asked where they received parenting information, how and where they preferred to receive parenting information, and what they thought about Bright Futures parenting guidelines. Fathers most commonly described receiving parenting information from their own relatives rather than from their child’s health care provider. Most fathers preferred to learn parenting from a person rather than a technology-based source and expressed interest in learning more about parenting at community-based locations. Although fathers viewed health care providers’ role as primarily teaching about physical health, they valued Bright Futures anticipatory guidance about parenting. Fathers valued learning about child rearing, health, and development. Augmenting physician counseling about Bright Futures with community-based parenting education may be beneficial for fathers. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]