As residency programs adopt ultrasound training, medical school faculty should consider incorporating ultrasound education into their curriculum. Portable ultrasound has the potential to be used in many different settings, including rural practice sites and sporting events. The WSUSOM committee's pilot ultrasound curriculum will continue to use student feedback to enhance the ultrasound experience, helping students prepare for challenges that they will face in the future.
To assess primary care resident and faculty knowledge and attitudes concerning interactions between physicians and pharmaceutical representatives (PRs) and to measure changes in residents' knowledge and attitudes after an educational intervention, we conducted preintervention and postintervention surveys with a causal-comparative group in a universitybased primary care residency program. All primary care internal medicine and internal medicine-pediatrics residents and faculty were given the voluntary survey. In general, residents and faculty demonstrated similar responses for the preintervention survey. Differences between faculty and resident opinions were seen in two areas. Faculty were more likely than residents to believe that PRs sometimes use unethical marketing practices ( p Ͻ .05) and that the amount of contact with PRs in the outpatient clinic is excessive ( p Ͻ .01). The postintervention survey of residents demonstrated significant differences between the control and intervention groups for three attitude scales. After the intervention, residents showed an increased belief that PRs may use unethical marketing practices ( p Ͻ .01), that marketing gifts with no patient benefit may be inappropriate ( p ؍ .05), and that other physicians' prescribing patterns could be negatively influenced through the acceptance of gifts ( p Ͻ .05). A brief educational intervention can change resident attitudes concerning physician interactions with PRs.
Measurement experts generally agree that a systematic approach to test construction will probably result in an instrument with sound psychometric properties. One fundamental method is called the blueprint approach to test construction. A test blueprint is a tool used in the process for generating content-valid exams by linking the subject matter delivered during instruction and the items appearing on the test. Unfortunately, this procedure as well as other educational measurement practices is often overlooked A survey of curriculum administrators at 144 United States and international medical schools was conducted to assess the importance and prevalence of test blueprinting in their school. Although most found test blueprinting to be very important, few require the practice. The purpose of this paper is to review the fundamental principals associated with achieving a high level of content validity when developing tests for students. The short-term efforts necessary to develop and integrate measurement theory into practice will lead to long-term gains for students, faculty and academic institutions.
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