Delivery of Health Care ; Education, Medical ; standards ; Humans ; Schools, Medical ; standards ; Singapore

INTRODUCTIONTo evaluate the perceptions of the graduates of our medical school regarding the quality of their educational programme.

MATERIALS AND METHODSA total of 183 questionnaires, each containing 262 questions, were completed anonymously by medical students upon their graduation from the medical school.

RESULTSAbout 77% of the respondents felt that Basic Science courses lacked clinical relevance. Many of the students (61.2%) believed that physiology, amongst other Basic Science courses, was the most clinically relevant course. Assessment of the students about their clinical clerkship and internship rotations was not very favourable. Overall only 28.4% of the respondents were generally satisfied with the medical training they received. Respondents indicated many deficiencies in the curriculum, and in their competences. Exposure to numerous activities was rated by respondents as being inadequate: "geriatrics and gerontology education" (87.5%), "office management" (86.4%), "alternative medicine" (85.8%), "healthcare quality improvement" (85.7%), and "rehabilitation" (83%). Around 70% of the respondents reported that they have not been taught sufficient clinical skills in preparations for their future clinical practice. Only 33.3% of the respondents felt that they had acquired adequate knowledge and skills to start residency training.

CONCLUSIONSThis study illuminates many aspects of the curriculum the faculty needs to address in order to prepare physicians effectively and efficiently for clinical work. It can be used as a tool to find the trends in our curriculum and the impact of curriculum revision activities which are currently underway in our School of Medicine.

Adult ; Consumer Behavior ; Data Collection ; Education, Medical ; standards ; Female ; Humans ; Iran ; Male ; Program Evaluation ; methods ; Schools, Medical ; standards ; Students, Medical

PURPOSE: The purpose of this study was to examine the validity of student ratings of instruction by analyzing their relationships with several variables, including gender, academic rank, specialty, teaching time, and teaching method, at a medical school. METHODS: This study analyzed the student ratings of 297 courses at Ajou University School of Medicine in 2013. SPSS version 12.0 was used to analyze the data and statistics by t-test, analysis of variance, and Scheffe test. RESULTS: There were no statistically significant differences in student ratings between gender, rank, and specialty. However, student ratings were significantly influenced by teaching times and methods (p<0.05). Student ratings were high for teaching times of 10 hours or more and small-group learning, compared with lectures. There was relatively mean differences in students ratings by teaching times, specialty and rank, although the difference in ratings was not statistically significant. CONCLUSION: Student ratings can be classified by teaching time and method for summative purposes. To apply student ratings to the evaluation of the performance of faculty, further studies are needed to analyze the variables that influence student ratings.
*Attitude ; *Curriculum ; *Education, Medical, Undergraduate ; Faculty/standards ; Female ; Humans ; *Learning ; Male ; *Schools, Medical ; *Students, Medical ; Surveys and Questionnaires ; Teaching/*standards

PURPOSE: Doctors are asked to play the roles of both a healer and a professional. In dealing with this inherent demand, we should first ask ourselves if we are selecting students who show traits that would enable them to become a good doctor. The primary concern of this study was to identify the core elements of medical professionalism that will develop into professional competence that we should be sought in medical school applicants. MATERIALS AND METHODS: One hundred-six responses from the Delphi survey done by medical school professors and 230 completed questionnaires from medical students were used for analysis. We also set out to analyze the level of medical professionalism in newly entering medical students using a 5-point Likert scale. RESULTS: Of the 27 elements of medical professionalism examined, the most important core element was thought to be 'life-long learning skills'. The level of professionalism in Korean medical students was mostly assessed to be less than the 3.0 mean score given by the professors. Medical students tended to rate themselves higher than did the professors for their level of medical professionalism. CONCLUSION: Medical professionalism can be categorized into three domains; professional knowledge, professional skills, and professional attitude. For the prominent differences in the recognition of the levels of professionalism elements in medical students by students and professors, further studies investigating the reasons for discrepancy are needed.
Data Collection ; Delivery of Health Care/standards ; Education, Medical/standards ; Physician's Role ; Professional Competence/standards ; Schools, Medical/*standards ; Students, Medical/*statistics & numerical data

To identify where the quality research activity has been and is carried out in Korea, and to examine to what extents Korean medical colleges play leading roles in the production of international research papers, we investigated the publication productivity of Korean medical colleges and their medical departments as measured by the number of papers published in foreign journals indexed in MEDLINE. The 12-year period from 1988 to 1999 is covered. A total of 4,881 papers is published in MEDLINE foreign journals by the researchers in Korean medical colleges during the period. The production of MEDLINE papers are concentrated in a few universities. More than 60% of MEDLINE foreign journal papers is published by top five universities 25% by Seoul National University, and 15% by Yonsei University. The newly established medical colleges at the University of Ulsan and Sungkyunkwan University produced outstanding numbers of papers in less than ten years. Radiology has led the internationalization of Korean medical papers. It was the most productive specialty identified in this study. The productivity of Internal medicine is on the rise from the mid-1990s, and the field began to produce the most number of papers since then.
Bibliometrics* ; Korea ; MEDLINE* ; Periodicals/statistics & numerical data* ; Research/standards ; Schools, Medical/statistics & numerical data* ; Schools, Medical/standards ; Specialties, Medical/statistics & numerical data

Curriculum ; standards ; Delivery of Health Care ; Education, Medical ; Internationality ; Models, Organizational ; Public Health ; education ; Schools, Medical

The increasing globalisation of medicine, as manifested in the migration rate of medical doctors and in the growth of cross-border education providers, has inflicted a wave of quality assurance efforts in medical education, and underlined the need for definition of standards and for introduction of effective and transparent accreditation systems. In 2004, reflecting the importance of the interface between medical education and the healthcare delivery sector, a World Health Organization (WHO)/World Federation for Medical Education (WFME) Strategic Partnership to improve medical education was formed. In 2005, the partnership published Guidelines for Accreditation of Basic Medical Education. The WHO/WFME Guidelines recommend the establishment of proper accreditation systems that are effective, independent, transparent and based on medical education-specific criteria. An important prerequisite for this development was the WFME Global Standards programme, initiated in 1997 and widely endorsed. The standards are now being used in all 6 WHO/WFME regions as a basis for quality improvement of medical education throughout its continuum and as a template for national and regional accreditation standards. Promotion of national accreditation systems will have a pivotal influence on future international appraisal of medical education. Information about accreditation status - the agencies involved and the criteria and procedure used - will be an essential component of new Global Directories of Health Professions Educational Institutions. According to an agreement between the WHO and the University of Copenhagen (UC), these Directories (the Avicenna Directories) will be developed and published by the UC with the assistance of the WFME, starting with renewal of the WHO World Directory of Medical Schools, and sequentially expanding to cover educational institutions for other health professions. The Directories will be a foundation for international meta-recognition ("accrediting the accreditors") of educational institutions and their programmes.
Accreditation ; Curriculum ; Education, Medical ; standards ; Internationality ; Policy Making ; Quality Control ; Schools, Medical ; World Health Organization

PURPOSE: This study conducted a needs assessment for developing teaching competencies of medical educators by assessing their perceived ability to perform teaching competencies as well as their perceived importance of these competencies. Additionally, this study examined whether there were any differences in needs assessments scores among three faculty groups. METHODS: Hundred and eighteen professors from Dong-A University College of Medicine were surveyed, and the data from 44 professors who answered all the questions were analyzed using IBM SPSS 21. The needs assessment tool measured participants' perceived ability to perform teaching competencies and perceived importance of these competencies. The Borich formula was used to calculate needs assessment scores. RESULTS: The most urgent needs for faculty development were identified for the teaching competencies of "diagnosis and reflection," followed by "test and feedback," and "facilitation." Additionally, two, out of 51, items with the highest needs assessment scores were "developing a thorough course syllabus" and "introducing students to the course syllabus on the first day of class." The assistant professor group scored significantly higher on educational needs related to "facilitation," "affection and concern for students," and "respect for diversity" competencies than the professor group. Furthermore, the educational needs scores for all the teaching competencies except "diagnosis and reflection," "global mindset," and "instructional management" were higher for the assistant professor group than the other two faculty groups. CONCLUSION: Thus, the educational needs assessment scores obtained in this study can be used as criteria for designing and developing faculty development programs for medical educators.
*Education, Medical ; Faculty, Medical/*standards ; Female ; Humans ; *Needs Assessment/standards ; *Professional Competence ; Republic of Korea ; Schools, Medical ; Surveys and Questionnaires ; Teaching/*standards ; Universities

The Hong Kong Academy of Medicine, established in 1993, is the only statutory body in Hong Kong to train, assess and accredit medical and dental specialists. According to the law in Hong Kong, a doctor or dentist who wishes to have his name included in the Specialist Register of Medical Council or Dental Council must either be a Fellow of the Academy or be assessed and certified by the Academy to have qualifications and training comparable to that required of an Academy Fellow. Once a doctor or dentist is on the Specialist Register, he must fulfil the continuing medical education requirements as determined by the Academy to maintain his specialist status. The Hospital Authority of Hong Kong has implemented the Doctor Work Reform (DWR) since 2006 which involves reduction of doctors' work hours and may affect training. The long-term strategy of the Academy with regards to the issue of DWR is to modernise postgraduate medical education and closely monitor the process to ensure that the quality of training would not be affected.
Clinical Competence ; standards ; Education, Medical, Continuing ; standards ; Health Care Reform ; standards ; Health Knowledge, Attitudes, Practice ; Hong Kong ; Humans ; Medicine ; standards ; Quality of Health Care ; standards ; Schools, Medical ; standards ; Specialty Boards ; standards

INTRODUCTIONPlanning a high-stake clinical examination requires the evaluation of several psychometric and logistical variables. The authors conducted generalisability and decision studies to answer the following research questions in the context of the surgical long case: (1) Does the addition of a third examiner have any added benefit, vis-à-vis reliability, to the examination? (2) Is global marking more reliable than an itemised marking template? (3) What would be the impact on reliability if there was a reduction in the number of examinees that each panel of examiners is required to assess?

METHODSA third examiner and global marking were introduced. Separate generalisability and decision studies were carried out for both the two- and three-examiner models as well as for itemised and global scores.

RESULTSThe introduction of a third examiner resulted in a modest gain of reliability by 0.05-0.07. Gain in reliability was higher when each candidate was allowed to undertake a higher number of clinical cases. Both the global and itemised scores provided equivalent reliability (generalisability coefficient 0.74-0.89).

CONCLUSIONOur results showed that only a modest improvement in reliability of the surgical long case is achieved through the introduction of an additional examiner. Although the reliability of global scoring and the itemised marking template was comparable, the latter may provide opportunities for individualised feedback to examinees.

Clinical Competence ; Education, Medical, Undergraduate ; methods ; standards ; Educational Measurement ; methods ; Humans ; Medical History Taking ; methods ; Observation ; Professional-Patient Relations ; Psychometrics ; methods ; Reproducibility of Results ; Schools, Medical ; Singapore