Learning and education

BACKGROUND: Journal clubs can be used as a learning activity for developing students' skills in critical appraisal and are perceived as suitable for increasing students' exposure to research methods. AIMS/OBJECTIVES: To explore how undergraduate occupational therapy students experienced journal club and how they perceived their learning outcomes from participating in this learning activity. MATERIALS AND METHODS: A mixed methods study comprised of a survey followed by two focus groups was conducted...

Sexual and gender minority (LGBT+) populations continue to experience worse health outcomes and reduced healthcare access compared to their cisgender, heterosexual counterparts, perpetuated by a lack of sufficient LGBT+-specific healthcare education within medical schools. Developing educational material that encourages self-reflective, proactive, and affirmative practice has been identified as a mechanism for increasing the quality of doctor-patient relationships and breaking down barriers in healthcare access for LGBT + communities...

BACKGROUND: Children with Developmental Coordination Disorder (DCD) are diagnosed based on poor motor skills that impact their daily activities. However, this may also lead to lower predilection and participation in physical activities and a higher risk to develop health problems. OBJECTIVE: To determine motor skill related levels in children with moderate and severe DCD and compare that to typically developing children (TD). The study also aimed to determine the level of activities of daily living (ADL) as reported by their parent and self-efficacy as reported by the children...

PURPOSE: The use of 3D-printing in every field of medicine is expanding, notably as an educational tool. The aim of this study was to assess how visuospatial abilities (VSA) of students may impact learning helped with 3D-printed models. METHODS: Participants were undergraduate medical school students during their clinical rotation in oral and maxillofacial surgery in two French Universities. Students were included prospectively and consecutively from September 2021 to June 2023...

INTRODUCTION: Many educators have adopted the Promoting Excellence and Reflective Learning in Simulation (PEARLS) model to guide debriefing sessions in simulation-based learning. The PEARLS Debriefing Checklist (PDC), a 28-item instrument, and the PEARLS Debriefing Adherence Rubric (PDAR), a 13-item instrument, assess facilitator adherence to the model. The aims of this study were to collect evidence of concurrent validity and to evaluate their unique strengths. METHODS: A review of 130 video recorded debriefings from a synchronous high-fidelity mannequin simulation event involving third-year medical students was undertaken...

INTRODUCTION: Physician educators are essential in training the next generation of physicians. However, physician educators' perspectives about what experiences they find beneficial to their teaching and the prevalence of these experiences remain unknown. Guided by social cognitive career theory (SCCT) and communities of practice (CoP), we explored what experiences physician educators perceive as beneficial in preparing them to teach. METHODS: In 2019, the Uniformed Services University School of Medicine in the United States surveyed its physician alumni to understand their education experiences during medical school, their current career path and what has contributed to their teaching role...

Given the past limitations on clinical practice training during the COVID-19 pandemic, a hybrid format program was developed, combining a time-lapse unfolding case study and high-fidelity simulation. This study assesses the effectiveness of a new form of clinical training from the perspective of student nurses. A questionnaire was administered to 159 second-year nursing students enrolled in the "Basic Nursing Practice II" course. Text mining was performed using quantitative text analysis for the following items: (1) aspects that were learned more deeply, (2) benefits, and (3) difficulties encountered with the new practice format...

As artificial intelligence (AI) continues to evolve rapidly, its integration into nursing education is inevitable. This article presents a narrative exploring the implementation of generative AI in nursing education and offers a guide for its strategic use. The exploration begins with an examination of the broader societal impact and uses of artificial intelligence, recognizing its pervasive presence and the potential it holds. Thematic analysis of strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats collected from nurse educators across the southeastern United States in this case-based descriptive study used four codes: time, innovation, critical thinking, and routine tasks...

BACKGROUND: Vaccine hesitancy among parents directly affects the child's vaccination status since they are the legal decision-makers regarding vaccinating their children. The study aimed to describe the perceptions of highly educated Kazakhstani mothers about childhood vaccination hesitancy. METHODS: The study utilized a thematic analysis to explore the mothers' perceptions. A sample of 95 participants comprehensively answered the free-text questions in an online questionnaire from January to February 2023...

BACKGROUND: Learning clinical reasoning is less effective in isolation of clinical environments because contextual factors are a significant component in the clinical reasoning process. This study investigated the differences in opinions between novice and expert clinicians on learning clinical reasoning in the workplace. MATERIALS AND METHODS: The author used a cross-sectional online survey design to investigate the perceived learning of six clinical reasoning skills in 13 learning opportunities...

Introduction  At the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, many graduate medical education (GME) programs switched from in-person to virtual training to ensure a safe learning environment. However, the preferences of US residents in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic are largely unknown. Objective The authors surveyed PGY-2 psychiatry residents about their perception of the pandemic's impact on their clinical skills, didactics experience, training preferences, and future career perceptions. Methods The cross-sectional study was conducted from October 31, 2021, to December 31, 2021...

This column shares lessons learned from a 1-year pilot implementation of a crisis response program deploying crisis professionals to rural parts of Albany County, New York. The data (325 crisis interventions for 191 unique individuals, 57% of cases resolved on the scene) suggest that the program helps fill the crisis services gap in these communities. Police were present on 80% of cases. Educating police to build confidence in the program and providing clearer guidelines on the triage process for dispatchers may be important strategies to continue shifting crisis response duties from traditional first responders to crisis professionals...

AIM: This study aimed to compare the level of cultural competence among nurses working in clinical practice in Slovakia and the Czech Republic. BACKGROUND: Demographic changes have greatly affected the health sector in Slovakia and the Czech Republic. By identifying the level of nurses' cultural competence, many of the complications encountered in caring for patients from different cultures can be avoided. However, few studies have explored the cultural competence of nurses in clinical practice in these countries...

Protecting brain health is a goal of early intervention. We explored whether sleep quality or chronotype could predict white matter (WM) integrity in emerging mental disorders. Young people (N = 364) accessing early-intervention clinics underwent assessments for chronotype, subjective sleep quality, and diffusion tensor imaging. Using machine learning, we examined whether chronotype or sleep quality (alongside diagnostic and demographic factors) could predict four measures of WM integrity: fractional anisotropy (FA), and radial, axial, and mean diffusivities (RD, AD and MD)...

BACKGROUND: The workload of public health nurses (PHNs) working for local governments has been increasing as health issues become more diverse and complicated. Even amidst the ongoing administrative and fiscal reforms, there is an urgent need to ensure how effectively and efficiently public health nurses can practice in health service development. The objective of this research was to clarify the actual conditions of best practice transfer (BPT) and its related factors. METHODS: An anonymous postal and self-administered questionnaire survey was conducted among PHNs working at 334 sites, including the local government offices and health centers across Japan, and analysed mainly through logistic regression analysis...

BACKGROUND: A number of recommendations for the teaching of biostatistics have been published to date, however, student opinion on them has not yet been studied. For this reason, the aim of the manuscript was to find out the opinions of medical students at universities in Poland on two forms of teaching biostatistics, namely traditional and practical, as well as to indicate, on the basis of the results obtained, the related educational recommendations. METHODS: The study involved a group of 527 students studying at seven medical faculties in Poland, who were asked to imagine two different courses...

BACKGROUND: Medical school curricula strive to train community-engaged and culturally competent physicians, and many use service learning to instill these values in students. The current standards for medical service learning frameworks have opportunities for improvement, such as encouraging students to have more sustainable and reciprocal impact and to ingrain service learning as a value to carry throughout their careers rather than a one-time experience. PEDS 220: A COVID-19 Elective is a Stanford University course on the frontlines of this shift; it provides timely education on the COVID-19 pandemic, integrating community-oriented public health work to help mitigate its impact...

BACKGROUND: Immersive technologies such as smart glasses can benefit nursing training and clinical practice. In this paper, we explore the views of nursing graduate students about their experience with smart glasses. METHODS: Nursing graduate students (n = 13) were recruited using purposeful sampling. First, a virtual reality intervention for hyperglycemia in nursing care was shown. This was an attempt to introduce people to the technology and start discussions about how it might be used in nursing care...

BACKGROUND: Artificial intelligence (AI) tools are designed to create or generate content from their trained parameters using an online conversational interface. AI has opened new avenues in redefining the role boundaries of teachers and learners and has the potential to impact the teaching-learning process. METHODS: In this descriptive proof-of- concept cross-sectional study we have explored the application of three generative AI tools on drug treatment of hypertension theme to generate: (1) specific learning outcomes (SLOs); (2) test items (MCQs- A type and case cluster; SAQs; OSPE); (3) test standard-setting parameters for medical students...

BACKGROUND: The study aimed to assess the impact of different training modalities on otoscopy performance during a practical exam using a high-fidelity simulator and to determine if objective evaluation of otoscopy is feasible using a simulator that records insertion depth and tympanic membrane coverage. METHODS: Participants were assigned to one of four groups: control and three intervention groups with varying training approaches. Participants received otoscopy training and then were assessed through a practical exam on a high-fidelity simulator that uses virtual reality to visualize the ear canal and middle ear...