Vital Signs, Summer 1986

Wright State University CORE Scholar Vital Signs Boonshoft School of Medicine Newsletters Summer 1986 Vital Signs, Summer 1986 Boonshoft School of Medicine Follow this and additional works at: https://corescholar.libraries.wright.edu/med_vital_signs Part of the Medical Education Commons, and the Medical Specialties Commons Repository Citation Boonshoft School of Medicine (1986). Vital Signs, Summer 1986. Dayton, Ohio: Wright State University Boonshoft School of Medicine. This Magazine is brought to you for free and open access by the Boonshoft School of Medicine Newsletters at CORE Scholar. It has been accepted for inclusion in Vital Signs by an authorized administrator of CORE Scholar. For more information, please contact [email protected]. vitalsigns Summer 1986 Contents Volume 12, Number 3 School of Medicine Administration 2 Tracking the Course of Medical William D. Sawyer, MD , Dean Education John 0 . Lindower, MD., PhD. Program evaluation enables a medical education curriculum to keep pace with a J. Robert Suriano, PhD. rapidly changing profession. Jack Groves, M.BA Douglas Durko, M PA 5 Miami Valley Residency Col. Frederick Bode, MD. Programs Thomas Matthews, MD. Residency programs in internal medicine, family practice, and orthopedic surgery at Miami Valley Hospital are reviewed. Vitalsigns Staff Jane E. Treiber Director, Communications and Events Mark Willis, Editor and Writer Joy Langston Cindy Hodgson April Stephens 9 Student Notebook Advisory Committee Marshall Kapp , JD , MP H 10 Alumni News Larry Kinneer An update on Wright State School of Medicine graduates, plus photographs from Graduation William D. Sawyer, M.D. Weekend '86. Sylvan D. Weinberg, MD. 12 Graduation Scrapbook Design and Editorial The Class of 1986 was honored at the seventh University Communications annual Student Recognition Ceremony. Photography University Media Production Services Typesetting Printing Service Vita/signs is published quarterly by the 18 Bulletin Board Wright State University School of Medicine , Office of Communications and Events. For the Record Dayton , Ohio 45435, and is free to 21 interested readers. ~) 1986 Wright State University School of Medicine WRIGHT Wright State University STATE Dayton, Ohio 45435 2 T R A c K I N G The Course of Medical Education The milieu in which physicians practice medicine continues to change. Medical knowledge itself is expanding steadily so that the education of a physician is truly a lifelong process. In addition to meeting high standards of professional competence, physicians must also meet growing public expectations for more efficient, cost-effective health care services. To prepare medical students for sucli a rapidly evolving profession, a medical education curriculum must also be sensitive to change. An important curriculum component at many medical schools, including Wright State University School of Medicine, is a carefully coordinated evaluation program that monitors curriculum quality and promotes orderly, effective change. A Developing Science "Evaluation is the process of gathering information that can be used to make decisions. My job is to help set up evaluations that gather reliable and sound information, so that people can steer away from making decisions based on intuition, personal judgments, or political considerations," explains Ronald J. Markert, Ph.D., associate professor of postgraduate medicine and continuing education and head of Evaluation Consultation Services at the School of Medicine. In addition to teaching -biostatistics to second-year medical students, Dr. Markert consults with the school's departments on how each conducts evaluations of its programs. He is sometimes asked to review examinations to determine whether they provide accurate, fair, and valid evaluations of medical student performance. He has John 0. Lindower, M.D., Ph.D. (left), with Ronald J. Markert, Ph.D. also designed evaluation instruments for specialized ., applications, such as forms that attending physicians can use to evaluate medical student performance in clinical methods for measuring these elements with precision ." settings during clerkship courses. Program evaluation at a professional school such as the Educational evaluation is still a developing science, School of Medicine differs from the simple course Dr. Markert notes, and it is faced with the challenge of evaluations conducted in undergraduate-level university refining methods of studying highly variable matter. "Things classes, according to Dr. Markert. Undergraduate courses in the physical world tend to be stable; if I measure your are usually taught by a single instructor, which is rarely the height or weight, I'm likely to get accurate measurements case in medical school courses. Undergraduate course consistently over time. In educational evaluation, whether evaluations generally assess the individual instructor's you 're evaluating a student's performance or collecting his effectiveness as a teacher, according to a few widely held or her opinion about a course, you're usually taking mental beliefs about teaching. Evaluations of medical school or cognitive measurements. Mental measurements tend to programs emphasize the effectiveness of the course itself, be highly variable according to changing circumstances. more than the teaching skills of individual instructors. A key Instead of numbers, language is the measuring tool that is concern in the medical education curriculum, Dr. Markert usually used in evaluation, and language is also changing adds, is determining how individual courses fit together in all the time. Evaluators can spend a lifetime trying to refine an integrated program. 3 "The program of courses that a student takes at the Residency Performance undergraduate level can be additive," Dr. Markert explains. of Wright State Graduates "Undergraduate programs do not necessarily follow a strict sequence of courses. One history major's program can look 0% 100% considerably different from another history major's program. Interpersonal skill with staff However, the programs taken by medical students are very similar, if not identical. It is possible for a history major to graduate without taking a course on the Civil War. A Interpersonal skill with patients medical student cannot graduate without completing a course in pharmacology. In fact, understanding pharmacology is necessary before the medical student can Fund of medical knowledge proceed to studying the clinical disciplines during the clerkship year. Motivation/diligence "In the medical curriculum, the courses must fit together like the pieces of a puzzle," he continues. "One of the checks to ensure that a physician is prepared to practice Verbal and presentation skills medicine in a competent manner is to make sure that the program through which he or she is trained has all the pieces, and that the pieces are integrated in a History taking skills sensible way." Outside evaluators of the School of Medicine such as the Liaison Committee for Medical Education (LCME) team that Physical examination skills reviewed the Wright State program during the 1983-84 academic year commonly ask, "How well do your students and graduates perform compared to those at other medical Differential diagnosis/problem listing skills schools?" To provide quantitative answers to this question, Dr. Markert has compiled a graduate data file that encompasses academic and demographic data on all Therapeutic planning School of Medicine graduates, beginning with the Charter Class of 1980. The ongoing longitudinal study also includes information collected from the first-year residency Procedural skills supervisors of School of Medicine graduates who have agreed to participate in the project. Using standardized surveys, the supervisors rate residency performance in the Overall evaluation eleven categories illustrated in the bar graphs on this page. In analyzing these data, Dr. Markert has found that over ninety percent of Wright State graduates. who participated in the study were rated satisfactory or above average in all Unsatisfactory Satisfactory Above Average eleven categories. Furthermore, two-thirds of Wright State graduates received an above average overall rating. Dr. Markert also found that Wright State graduates The bar graphs above summarize residency performance ratings of 157 Wright State School of Medicine graduates from the Classes of participating in the study performed slightly better than the 1983, 1984, and 1985. The ratings were made by residency norm on the National Board of Medical Examiners (NBME) supervisors at the end of the first year of residency. These data are Part 3 examination, which is administered after the first year part of an ongoing longitudinal study of School of Medicine of residency. While the national mean for NBME Part 3 graduates conducted by Dr. Ronald J. Markert. examination is anchored at 500, Wright State graduates have achieved a mean score of 508.4 based on a sample of 239 graduates from the Classes of 1980 through 1984. The First Ten Years "The fact that our students and graduates are rated as Editor's note: Dr. Markert will conduct a one-day workshop titled performing as well as or slightly better than their peers is "Practical Evaluation Skills for Health Care Supervisors and a sound accomplishment for a medical school as young Administrators" on Wednesday, October 15, 1986 at the Kettering Center, 140 East Monument Street, Dayton. For more information, contact the as Wright State's," according to John 0. Lindower, Department

Load more