Objectives
The purpose of this study is to provide expert consensus recommendations to establish a global ultrasound curriculum for undergraduate medical students.
Methods
64 multi-disciplinary ultrasound experts from 16 countries, 50 multi-disciplinary ultrasound consultants, and 21 medical students and residents contributed to these recommendations. A modified Delphi consensus method was used that included a systematic literature search, evaluation of the quality of literature by the GRADE system, and the RAND appropriateness method for panel judgment and consensus decisions. The process included four in-person international discussion sessions and two rounds of online voting.
Results
A total of 332 consensus conference statements in four curricular domains were considered: (1) curricular scope (4 statements), (2) curricular rationale (10 statements), (3) curricular characteristics (14 statements), and (4) curricular content (304 statements). Of these 332 statements, 145 were recommended, 126 were strongly recommended, and 61 were not recommended. Important aspects of an undergraduate ultrasound curriculum identified include curricular integration across the basic and clinical sciences and a competency and entrustable professional activity-based model. The curriculum should form the foundation of a life-long continuum of ultrasound education that prepares students for advanced training and patient care. In addition, the curriculum should complement and support the medical school curriculum as a whole with enhanced understanding of anatomy, physiology, pathophysiological processes and clinical practice without displacing other important undergraduate learning. The content of the curriculum should be appropriate for the medical student level of training, evidence and expert opinion based, and include ongoing collaborative research and development to ensure optimum educational value and patient care.
Conclusions
The international consensus conference has provided the first comprehensive document of recommendations for a basic ultrasound curriculum. The document reflects the opinion of a diverse and representative group of international expert ultrasound practitioners, educators, and learners. These recommendations can standardize undergraduate medical student ultrasound education while serving as a basis for additional research in medical education and the application of ultrasound in clinical practice.
The authors examined how satisfied patients and residents were before and after the restructuring of the general medicine clinic at a large urban teaching hospital in 1985; the change to a longitudinal care clinic was made to provide greater continuity of care, more consistent access of residents to attending physicians, and a more structured educational curriculum. Questionnaires to assess satisfaction were administered three weeks before and ten months after the change to all 80 of the second- and third-year residents. A convenience sample of 310 patients seen during a two-week period before the change and another such sample of 267 patients seen during a two-week period ten months after the change comprised the patients who completed a patients' satisfaction questionnaire. The residents were significantly more satisfied with the quality of care, functioning, and educational value of the new longitudinal care clinic. Their average overall rating of satisfaction (on a scale where 1 = completely dissatisfied and 5 = completely satisfied) increased from 2.3 to 3.7 (p less than .001). Unexpectedly, the patients were "very satisfied" with both clinic models and their overall ratings changed little (4.5 before, 4.4 after). In addition, the patients' and residents' before-and-after perceptions of the quality of care delivered in the clinic differed substantially. These findings show that the longitudinal care clinic significantly enhanced the satisfaction of the residents but not of the patients. Furthermore, the data suggest that results from standardized patients' satisfaction surveys may not accurately assess the quality of care being delivered.
The Foundation for Advancement of International Medical Education and Research (FAIMER), a member of Intealth, offers longitudinal faculty development programs (LFDPs) in health professions education (HPE) and leadership through its International FAIMER Institute (IFI) in the United States and FAIMER Regional Institutes (FRIs) globally. FAIMER fosters mutual collaboration and delineates shared responsibilities for FRI development in partnership with local institutions, using an adapted hub-and-spoke organizational design. This paper describes FAIMER's model, its sustainability, and its impacts at individual, institutional, and national levels. IFI was launched in 2001 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, as a 2-year
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