Teaching public health to medical students in the United Kingdom--are the General Medical Council's recommendations being implemented?
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BACKGROUND: Despite frequent calls to improve undergraduate medical public health teaching, little is known about whether curricula have changed. We report a survey of undergraduate public health teaching in UK medical schools in 1996. The survey aimed to assess whether the General Medical Council's 1993 recommendations to strengthen undergraduate medical education in public health have been implemented. METHODS: We asked heads of academic departments of public health at all 26 UK medical schools to complete a questionnaire and provide supporting documentation for each undergraduate public health course or module. We compared results from the 1996 survey with those from a similar survey in 1992. RESULTS: Twenty-one out of 26 (81 per cent) medical schools responded. All responding medical schools included public health teaching within their curriculum. The median number of public health courses per medical school was unchanged since 1992. A wide variety of topics were taught. Core public health subjects were taught at most schools, though over a quarter of medical schools did not cover some core topics. Between 1992 and 1996 the proportion of time devoted to teaching by lectures decreased, whereas the following all increased: teaching by small group methods; the proportion of courses using methods of assessment encouraging active learning; and the contribution of public health courses to the final degree assessment. CONCLUSION: The findings suggest that many of the General Medical Council's recommendations for improving the delivery of undergraduate education are being addressed by public health teaching in UK medical schools. However, addressing the gaps in undergraduate public health teaching revealed in this survey is a continuing challenge for academic public health departments. Medical schools should review the content of their undergraduate public health teaching to ensure that tomorrow's doctors are adequately equipped with public health knowledge and skills. (+info)
Clinical experience during the paediatric undergraduate course.
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Medical students at the Cambridge Clinical School are provided with a list of 42 core conditions they should encounter and 20 core skills they should perform during their attachment. By self-completion questionnaires we assessed their clinical experience and the amount of teaching they received, relating the results to marks gained in end-of-attachment assessments. 103 (93%) of 110 students in year one and 123 (96%) of 128 in year two completed the questionnaires. Of the 42 core conditions, 13 were seen by under 70% of the students in year one. In year two, exposure rate increased for 26 core conditions by a median of 7% (range 2-40) and decreased in 13 core conditions by a median value 4% (range 5-13) (P = 0.0005, chi 2). Only mandatory core skills were performed by over 90% of students. 5% of students did not perform any newborn examinations and under 60% observed neonatal resuscitation or a high-risk delivery. Students' core condition score was associated with their core skill score (r = 0.5), hospital grade (r = 0.3) and exposure to acute paediatrics (r = 0.3) (P < 0.005). There was no significant association between clinical experience and the objective examination score or the amount of teaching received. There was an inverse association between the number of students at a hospital and the number of core conditions with an exposure rate above 70% at that hospital (r = 0.7, P < 0.05). This study suggests that clinical experience may be better judged by the clinical supervisor than by assessment of theoretical knowledge. (+info)
Teaching community diagnosis: integrating community experience with meeting graduate standards for health educators.
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In 1996, the American Association for Health Education and the Society for Public Health Education developed new Standards for the Preparation of Graduate Level Health Educators. Learning to work effectively with communities is an essential part of graduate level health education. This article provides an overview of the community diagnosis (CD) class, a component of the Master's in Public Health program in the Department of Health Behavior and Health Education, School of Public Health, University of North Carolina. CD is a required two-semester class in which student teams work with preceptors to define a client community, assess its needs and strengths, and establish a foundation of quantitative and qualitative data for future community action. This experience provides a strong foundation for development of graduate level competencies and fosters an appreciation for the complexity of partnerships with communities. (+info)
An interdisciplinary approach to a day-long palliative care course for undergraduate students.
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Although it is desirable that students in the health sciences be educated together to prepare them for interdisciplinary practice, many educational programs remain discipline specific. An undergraduate course in palliative care, originally designed for medical students at McMaster University, Hamilton, Ont., was expanded in 1993 to include students from various health sciences programs in the region. The course introduces students to the components of palliative care and its interdisciplinary nature in a problem-based way and directs students to additional educational resources. The authors describe the planning, content and evaluation of the course material. The observed decline in attendance by medical students, which coincided with the introduction of the interdisciplinary format, warrants further investigation. Future directions of the course are discussed. (+info)
A hypergraphic model of medical informatics: curriculum development guide.
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Medical informatics, as a descriptive, scientific study, must be mathematically or theoretically described. Is it important to define a model for medical informatics? The answer is worth pursuing. The medical informatics profession stands to benefit three-fold: first, by clarifying the vagueness of the definition of medical informatics, secondly, by identifying the scope and content for educational programs, and, thirdly, by defining career opportunities for its graduates. Existing medical informatics curricula are not comparable. Consequently, the knowledge and skills of graduates from these programs are difficult to assess. The challenge is to promote academics that develops graduates for prospective employers to fulfill the criteria of the health care industry and, simultaneously, compete with computer science programs that produce information technology graduates. In order to meet this challenge, medical informatics programs must have unique curricula that distinguishes its graduates. The solution is to educate students in a comparable manner across the domain of medical informatics. This paper discusses a theoretical model for medical informatics. (+info)
The need for a skills-focussed applied healthcare informatics curriculum.
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Experience with Information Systems (IS) staff, interactions with healthcare senior management, and discussions with faculty and students have led us to the conclusions that few healthcare organizations have conceptualized and articulated an optimal organizational role for IS (particularly for IS leadership). In this paper we will describe the multi-polar, often conflicting "expectations" faced by many of today's healthcare IS departments, and define a set of useful and sustainable institutional model roles for IS. Then, we will formulate the set of challenges which IS professionals in these roles must be prepared to address. We will use this to propose a challenge-oriented, skills-based, methodology-focussed curriculum in Applied Healthcare Informatics, and delivery mechanisms that suit potential candidates. (+info)
Training graduate students to be teachers.
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Pedagogic education of graduate students, when and where it exists, is restricted to theoretical courses or to the participation of the students as teachers' assistants. This model is essentially reproductive and offers few opportunities for any significant curriculum innovation. To open an opportunity for novelty we have introduced a new approach in "Biochemistry Teaching", a course included in the Biochemistry Graduate Program of the Biochemistry Department (Universidade Estadual de Campinas and Universidade de Sao Paulo). The content of the course consists of a) choosing the theme, b) selecting and organizing the topics, c) preparing written material, d) establishing the methodological strategies, e) planning the evaluation tools and, finally, f) as teachers, conducting the course as an optional summer course for undergraduate students. During the first semester the graduate students establish general and specific educational objectives, select and organize contents, decide on the instructional strategies and plan evaluation tools. The contents are explored using a wide range of strategies, which include computer-aided instruction, laboratory classes, small group teaching, a few lectures and round table discussions. The graduate students also organize printed class notes to be used by the undergraduate students. Finally, as a group, they teach the summer course. In the three versions already developed, the themes chosen were Biochemistry of Exercise (UNICAMP), Biochemistry of Nutrition (UNICAMP) and Molecular Biology of Plants (USP). In all cases the number of registrations greatly exceeded the number of places and a selection had to be made. The evaluation of the experience by both graduate and undergraduate students was very positive. Graduate students considered this experience to be unique and recommended it to their schoolmates; the undergraduate students benefited from a more flexible curriculum (more options) and gave very high scores to both the courses and the teachers. (+info)