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The use of a performance-based assessment of senior medical students' clinical skills utilizing standardized patients was evaluated, with 6,804 student-patient encounters involving 405 students over 6 years. Results provide evidence for test security, content validity, construct validity, reliability, and test ability to discriminate a wide range of students' clinical performances. (DB)

At the end of their clinical clerkship rotations, all students in one medical school's classes of 1988 (N=69), 1989 (N=63), 1990 (N=66) took the Post-Clerkship Examination. This study examined the nature of the patients' satisfaction ratings; reliability of patient satisfaction ratings and number of patients needed to derive reliable ratings; etc. (MLW)

A taskforce established by Medical Education asks readers to engage in discussion about how the journal and field can do better to ensure that health professional education publishing is inclusive of diverse knowledge and perspectives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Construct: This study aims to provide validity evidence for the standardized Assessment Letter for Pediatrics as a measure of competencies expected of a 1st-year pediatrics resident as part of a pediatric residency admissions process. Background: The Narrative Letter of Recommendation is a frequently used tool in the residency admissions process even though it has poor interrater reliability, lacks pertinent content, and does not correlate with residency performance. A newer tool, the Standardized Letter, has shown validity evidence for content and interrater reliability in other specialties. We sought to develop and provide validity evidence for the standardized Assessment Letter for Pediatrics. Approach: All 2012 and 2013 applicants invited to interview at the University of Geneva Pediatrics Residency Program provided 2 standardized Assessment Letters. Content for the letter was based on CanMEDS roles and ratings of 6 desired competencies and an overall assessment. Validity evidence was gathered for internal structure (Cronbach's alpha and generalizability), response process (interrater reliability with intraclass correlation), relations to other variables (Pearson's correlation coefficient), and consequences (logistic regression to predict admission). Results: One hundred fourteen faculty completed 142 standardized Assessment Letters for 71 applicants. Average overall assessment was 3.0 of 4 (SD = 0.59). Cronbach's alpha was 0.93. The G-coefficient was 0.59. The decision study projected that four Assessment Letters are needed to attain a G-coefficient of 0.73. Applicant variance (28.5%) indicated high applicant differentiation. The Assessment Letter intraclass coefficient was 0.51, 95% confidence interval (CI) [0.43, 0.59]. Assessment Letter scores were correlated with the structured interview (r =.28), 95% CI [0.05, 0.51]; global rating (r =.36), 95% CI [0.13, 0.58]; and admissions decision (r =.25), 95% CI [0.02, 0.46]. Assessment Letter scores did not predict the admissions decision (odds ratio = 1.67, p =.37) after controlling for the unique contribution of the structured interview and global rating scores. Conclusion: Validity evidence supports use of the Assessment Letter for Pediatrics; future studies should refine items to improve predictive validity and explore how to best integrate the Assessment Letter into the residency admissions process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: In the literature the need for relevance in medical education and training has been stressed. In the last 40 years medical schools have been challenged to train doctors competent to respond to community health needs. In the mid-90s the University of Geneva Faculty of Medicine introduced an integrated medical curriculum. In this initiative a particular emphasis was put in introducing a 6-year longitudinal and multidisciplinary Community Health Program (CHP). Objectives: The aims of the present article are to describe the conception, elaboration and implementation of the CHP as well as its evolution over 15 years and the evaluation of its outcomes. Methods: The CHP was at its origin elaborated by a small group of highly motivated teachers and later on developed by a multi-disciplinary group of primary care physicians, epidemiologists, public health and bioethics specialists, occupational health professionals, lawyers and historians. Evaluation of the program outcomes included educational innovations, new developments of the curriculum and interactions between students and the community. Results: The CHP learning objectives and teaching modalities were defined by the multi-disciplinary group in consensus meetings which triggered a collaborative spirit among teachers and facilitated further developments. The evaluation procedures allowed the monitoring of students' satisfaction which remained high over the years, students' active participation which decreased over time and success at certifying exams which was globally as good as in basic life sciences. The evaluation also assessed outcomes such as educational innovations, new developments of the curriculum and interactions between students and the community. Conclusion: As suggested in the literature, our experience shows that the students' direct exposure and practice in the community health environment is an effective training approach to broaden students' education by offering them a community perspective of health and disease. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]