Conjoint Professor Nicky Hudson

© 2016 John Wiley & Sons Ltd. Context: Interprofessional learning (IPL) is valuable in preparing health care students to work collaboratively in teams, with patients' needs at the core. Patient-centredness is the impetus for communication and collaboration in health care. Debate continues on when it is best to develop positive student attitudes towards these aspects of care. Should IPL commence early before attitudes to patients, professional stereotypes and identity are formed, or later for advanced learners with greater experience of their roles and responsibility in health care? This study explores graduate-entry medical students' attitudes to IPL and patient-centred care, on programme entry and after an early interdisciplinary clinical experience (ICE). Methods: An extended version of the Readiness for Interprofessional Learning Scale (RIPLS) was administered to four cohorts of medical students (n¿=¿279) on entry and after the 3-week placement. This 26-item RIPLS comprised four subscales: team work and collaboration; professional identity; roles and responsibilities; and patient-centredness. The impact of the placement on students' attitudes was assessed by using repeated measures analysis of variance to compare pre- and post-ICE subscale scores. Results: There were significant main effects of time (pre- versus post-ICE) for the subscales of teamwork and collaboration, professional identity and patient-centredness, but not for roles and responsibilities. Scores for teamwork and collaboration, professional identity and patient-centredness were all lower post-ICE. Conclusions: The students' less positive attitudes to teamwork and collaboration and professional identity may be due to the experience itself, or because it reinforced negative beliefs about the value of learning from non-medical health professionals. Perhaps the students' idealised view of their future role as a doctor was challenged by the experience, or they had an underdeveloped professional identity. Limited student experience of patients having an active role in their own health care may explain the decrease in attitudes to patient-centredness. A longitudinal qualitative study will explore these results. Discuss ideas arising from the article at www.mededuc.com discuss.

© 2015 Informa UK Ltd. Background: This study was undertaken to improve assessment practice on OSCEs through collaboration across geographically dispersed medical schools in Australia.Methods: A total of eleven OSCE stations were co-developed by four medical schools and used in summative 2011 and 2012 examinations for the assessment of clinical performance in the early clinical and exit OSCEs in each schools medical course. Partial Credit Rasch Model was used to evaluate the psychometric properties of the shared OSCE data. Evaluation of the quality assurance reports was used to determine the beneficial impact of the collaborative benchmarking exercise on learning and teaching outcomes.Results: The data for each examination demonstrated sufficient fit to the Rasch model with infit mean square values ranging from 0.88 to 0.99. Person separation (1.25-1.63) indices indicated good reliability. Evaluation of perceived benefits showed that the benchmarking process was successful as it highlighted common curriculum areas requiring specific focus and provided comparable data on the quality of teaching at the participating medical schools.Conclusion: This research demonstrates the validity of the psychometric data and benefits of evaluating clinical competence across medical schools without the enforcement of a prescriptive national curriculum or assessment.

© 2015 Informa UK Ltd. Background: Benchmarking among medical schools is essential, but may result in unwanted effects. Aim: To apply a conceptual framework to selected benchmarking activities of medical schools. Methods: We present an analogy between the effects of assessment on student learning and the effects of benchmarking on medical school educational activities. A framework by which benchmarking can be evaluated was developed and applied to key current benchmarking activities in Australia and New Zealand. Results: The analogy generated a conceptual framework that tested five questions to be considered in relation to benchmarking: what is the purpose? what are the attributes of value? what are the best tools to assess the attributes of value? what happens to the results? and, what is the likely "institutional impact" of the results? If the activities were compared against a blueprint of desirable medical graduate outcomes, notable omissions would emerge. Conclusion: Medical schools should benchmark their performance on a range of educational activities to ensure quality improvement and to assure stakeholders that standards are being met. Although benchmarking potentially has positive benefits, it could also result in perverse incentives with unforeseen and detrimental effects on learning if it is undertaken using only a few selected assessment tools.

Objective: All senior medical students at the University of Wollongong undertake a longitudinal integrated community-based clerkship, supervised by experienced general practitioners in a regional or rural community. This study investigates the influence of the longitudinal integrated clerkship model of medical education on scholarship among preceptors in these practice communities. Design: General practitioner preceptors were interviewed after the first student cohort had completed their 38-week placements. Analysis of transcripts identified themes supporting clinical scholarship among preceptors. The entire transcript for each preceptor was analysed, permitting a quantitative determination of each theme. Quotations supporting the themes were selected. Setting: The setting was the primary health care practices supervising the longitudinal integrated clerkship medical students. Participants: Twenty-six preceptors who supervised longitudinal integrated clerkship medical students in rural and regional New South Wales participated. None had previously been involved in this model of medical education. Main outcome measure: The study looked for evidence of clinical scholarship among preceptors supervising students in the longitudinal medical student clerkship. Results: Thematic analysis of interview transcripts revealed evidence of clinical scholarship in regional/rural clinical medicine. The 'practice' was validated as a place where scholarship occurs, an 'academy of learning' and part of the university. About half of the preceptors believed the longitudinal integrated clerkship gave students a deeper link with the community. Two thirds of participants perceived an improved quality of care in their practice. Conclusion: Longitudinal integrated clerkships in teaching communities of practice provide the opportunity for emergence of clinical scholarship among preceptors supporting the learning needs of medical students. © 2014 National Rural Health Alliance Inc.

Clinical placement learning experiences are integral to all health and medical curricula as a means of integrating theory into practice and preparing graduates to deliver safe, high-quality care to health consumers. A growing challenge for education providers is to access sufficient clinical placements with experienced supervisors who are skilled at maximising learning opportunities for students. This paper reports on the development and evaluation of an innovative online learning program aimed at enhancing student and clinical supervisors' preparedness for effective workplace-based learning. The evidence-based learning program used 'story-telling' as the learning framework. The stories, which were supported by a range of resources, aimed to engage the learners in understanding student and supervisor responsibilities, as well as the expectations and competencies needed to support effective learning in the clinical environment. Evaluation of this program by the learners and stakeholders clearly indicated that they felt authentically 'connected' with the characters in the stories and developed insights that suggested effective learning had occurred.