Evidence map›Paper›PMID 29138611›Full record

ArticleAdvances in medical education and practice2017

Volunteer patients and small groups contribute to abdominal examination's success.

Helen M Shields, Nielsen Q Fernandez-Becker, Sarah N Flier, Byron P Vaughn, Melissa H Tukey, Stephen R Pelletier, Douglas A Horst

Abstract read
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Article in Advances in medical education and practice, 2017. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 2 papers.

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2citing papers in PubMed
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1 · What the graph read from it

What it found

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2 · The registry

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3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

2 citing papers in PubMed.

  1. Article
  2. Clinical examinations: a medical student's perspective.Advances in medical education and practice · 2018
    Article
4 · The record

Corrections and comments

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

7 authors.

Helen M ShieldsDepartment of Medicine, Brigham and Women's Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA.
Nielsen Q Fernandez-BeckerDepartment of Medicine, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA.
Sarah N FlierDepartment of Medicine, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA.
Byron P VaughnDepartment of Medicine, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA.
Melissa H TukeyDepartment of Medicine, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA.
Stephen R PelletierCenter for Evaluation, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA.
Douglas A HorstDepartment of Medicine, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA.

Funding

No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.

6 · The paper itself

Abstract

backgroundPrior to 2007, we taught the abdominal examination in a hospital based group to 40 students, at one hospital. We used volunteer patients, small groups, repetition, and required faculty development sessions. In 2007, our medical school changed its "Introduction to Physical Examination" session so that the entire class was to be taught in a geographically central session. Our hospital was selected to lead the abdominal examination portion of the session.

aimOur aim was to answer three questions. First, could we quadruple the recruitment of volunteer patients, and faculty? Second, was it volunteer patients, small groups, repetition, or faculty training that was most valued by the students? Third, would volunteer patients and/or faculty agree to participate a second time?

methodsA total of 43-46 patients and 43-46 faculty were recruited and 43-46 examining rooms were obtained for each of the 5 years of this study. Teachers were required to attend a 1-hour faculty development session. The class of about 170 students was divided into 43-46 groups each year. The teacher demonstrated the abdominal examination and each student practiced the examination on another student. Each student then repeated the full abdominal examination on a volunteer patient.

resultsOver the 5-year time period (2008-2012), the abdominal examination ranked first among all organ systems' "Introductory Sessions". The abdominal examination ratings had the best mean score (1.35) on a Likert scale where 1 is excellent and 5 is poor. The students gave the most positive spontaneous comments to having volunteer patients, with small groups coming in as the second most appreciated educational element.

conclusionWe successfully quadrupled the number of faculty, patients, and examining rooms and created a highly rated educational program as measured by anonymous student evaluations, patient and faculty participation, and the medical school's selecting the abdominal examination methods as an "Advanced Examination" for the Pathways Curriculum.

Indexed as

abdominal examinationfaculty developmentrepetitionsmall groupsvolunteer patients

Identifiers

PMID29138611
PMCPMC5676735

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