Research in healthcare settings and medical education has relied heavily on quantitative methods. However, there are research questions within these academic domains that may be more adequately addressed by qualitative inquiry. While there are many qualitative approaches, ethnography is one method that allows the researcher to take advantage of relative immersion in order to obtain thick description. The purpose of this article is to introduce ethnography, to describe how ethnographic methods may be utilized, to provide an overview of ethnography's use in healthcare and medical education, and to summarize some key limitations with the method.
Anthropology, Cultural ; Delivery of Health Care ; Education, Medical ; Imidazoles ; Immersion ; Nitro Compounds ; Qualitative Research

PURPOSE: Traditional approaches to blueprint creation may focus on fine-grained detail at the expense of important foundational concepts. The purpose of this study was to develop a method for constructing an assessment blueprint to guide the creation of a new post-test for a two-day prehospital emergency medical services training program. METHODS: In order to create the blueprint, we first determined the proportions of the total classroom and home-study minutes associated with the lower- and higher-order cognitive objectives of each chapter of the textbook and the two-day classroom activities during training courses conducted from January to April 2015. These proportions were then applied to a 50-question test structure in order to calculate the number of desired questions by chapter and content type. RESULTS: Our blueprint called for the test to contain an almost even split of lower- and higher-order cognitive questions. One-best-answer multiple choice items and extended matching-type items were written to assess lower- and higher-order cognitive content, respectively. CONCLUSION: We report the first known application of an assessment blueprint to a prehospital professional development education program. Our approach to blueprint creation is computationally straightforward and could be easily adopted by a group of instructors with a basic understanding of lower- and higher-order cognitive constructs. By blueprinting at the chapter level, as we have done, item-writers should be more inclined to construct questions that focus on important central themes or procedures.
Choice Behavior ; Cognition ; Education* ; Emergencies* ; Emergency Medical Services* ; United States*

Medical school administrators, educators, and other key personnel must often make difficult choices regarding the creation, retention, modification, or termination of the various programs that take place at their institutions. Program evaluation is a data-driven strategy to aide decision-makers in determining the most appropriate outcome for programs within their purview. The purpose of this brief article is to describe one program evaluation model, the utilization-focused approach. In particular, we address the focus of this model, the personal factor, the role of the evaluator, and the evaluation process. Based on the flexibility of this model as well as its focus on stakeholder involvement, we encourage readers to consider the utilization-focused approach when evaluating programs.
Administrative Personnel ; Education, Medical ; Humans ; Hypogonadism ; Mitochondrial Diseases ; Ophthalmoplegia ; Pliability ; Program Evaluation ; Retention (Psychology) ; Schools, Medical

In this paper, we review and discuss ten common methodological mistakes found in retrospective chart reviews. The retrospective chart review is a widely applicable research methodology that can be used by healthcare disciplines as a means to direct subsequent prospective investigations. In many cases in this review, we have also provided suggestions or accessible resources that researchers can apply as a "best practices" guide when planning, conducting, or reviewing this investigative method.
Delivery of Health Care ; Medical Records ; Practice Guidelines as Topic ; Research Design ; Retrospective Studies*