Search

Today's medical students have grown up in a technological world, with access to a wide variety of educational resources for their personal study. Although there is some evidence from the USA that students prefer the internet to textbooks, there is little evidence of UK students' preferences, particularly during their primary care attachments.To identify what educational resources medical students are using for their personal study during primary care attachments and why they make these choices.We held two focus groups, one with five, and one with seven fifth-year UK medical students after their primary care attachment. We analysed the transcripts using thematic analysis to identify the educational resources used, and identified themes to describe why the students made these choices.Textbooks remain students' resource of choice for personal study. The most popular textbook was The Oxford Handbook of Clinical Medicine and internet sites were Google and GP Notebook. The choice of resource was influenced by convenience, purpose, recommendation, exam focus, reliability and learning styles. Two further overarching themes influencing their choices were the broad nature of general practice and the use of GP tutors as an important learning resource.In contrast to the USA, textbooks remain the most popular resource for these UK students. Students felt that the style of learning within general practice was fundamentally different to other specialities due to the breadth of the subject matter and this influenced the resources used. This research could help inform the development of educational resources tailored to the learners, and provides further evidence for the need to develop a more structured curriculum for students in primary care. Further research could explore the ideal role of GP tutors.

Simulation is increasingly used as a teaching tool and in assessment. The Ventriloscope® (VS) is a new auscultation simulator. This modified stethoscope allows pre-recorded sounds (activated wirelessly) to be integrated with a simulated patient (SP, professional actor).This study explores the instrument's potential for overcoming limitations of current objective structured clinical examination (OSCE) assessment by increasing validity while retaining reliability.After training SPs to synchronise the device with their breathing (recreating abnormal signs), we evaluated the VS during a third year undergraduate medical student OSCE. Students (n = 385), examiners (n = 19) and SPs (n = 10) completed post-exam questionnaires which were analysed using a coding framework. OSCE performance data were analysed using Stata 10.When 'compared to their usual stethoscope' 40% of students found no difference in using the VS; 69% found it easier to identify sounds; 68% found examination with the VS very or fairly realistic when 'compared to examining a real patient'. Examination scores were comparable with other OSCE stations.The VS reliably provided consistent 'abnormal' auscultatory signs within an OSCE framework. Using a VS may increase OSCE validity, allowing examiners to assess students' application of knowledge in a realistically simulated setting. The VS can help bridge the gap between simulation and real patients.

Assessment of clinical competence for these disciplines has been by a series of Objective Structured Clinical Examinations (OSCEs).

We describe the changes in the development and delivery of undergraduate medical education in the United Kingdom as it moved from being exclusively hospital based to one that is increasingly led and delivered by academic departments of general practice (GP), GP teachers, and hospitalists guided by the General Medical Council. We describe the impact of this change on GP teachers, medical students, and patients. The Kings Medical Firm in the Community and The Cambridge Community-based clinical course have been examples of innovation in undergraduate GP teaching and illustrate some of the strengths and challenges of delivering undergraduate medical teaching in the community.

Objectives To design a tool to explore current leadership teaching in an undergraduate curriculum, using the medical leadership competency framework (MLCF) Design An online questionnaire was designed based on the MLCF competences and sent to all course leads at Imperial College, London in Autumn 2011 Setting Imperial College, London Participants Sixty-nine course leads were invited to participate in the questionnaire study Main outcome measures Course leads were asked whether they teach each MLCF competence, which teaching methods they use, and how long they spend teaching each competency Results Overall there was a 78% questionnaire response rate (54/69). From the questionnaires received it was possible to extrapolate results across the remaining courses to achieve a 100% response rate. We were then able to produce a map of current leadership teaching showing that all MLCF competences are taught to varying degrees across the curriculum. The tool does not however provide information on the quality of teaching provided, or what students learn Conclusions There is a strong emphasis on the development of teaching leadership skills to undergraduates in Tomorrow's Doctors 2009 (TD09). It is difficult to know what teaching occurs across the curriculum of a large medical school. The design of a simple, electronic questionnaire will enable medical schools to map their current leadership teaching to the TD09 outcomes. This will help to inform further curriculum development and integration as well as signposting of learning opportunities

‘Knowledge management’ is not a term which makes the pulse race. It smacks of a combination of dull facts and bureaucracy. It could almost be something from a European Commission (EC) directive on the training of taxicab drivers. Neither Bellinger et al's (1999) definition of knowledge (‘the collation of information for a particular purpose, intended to be useful’) nor Sensky's (2002, this issue) own definition of knowledge management make it sound much more exciting.