A Reminder from the IAMSE Publications Committee

Dear IAMSE member,

Have you read the recent article in IAMSE entitled “Student Utilization of Digital Versions of classroom Lectures” by Kathryn Lovell and Geraud Plantegenest? It is an interesting study of how 1st and 2nd year medical students use streaming video of lectures. This study is helpful to identify students’ perceptions of the usefulness of having access to recordings of lectures. This article appears in Volume 19, issue 1 of the JIAMSE and is available to you within the IAMSE web page http://www.JIAMSE.org Your IAMSE member ID / Password will be required to view. If you have forgotten your login - click on the Forgotten Password button.

JIAMSE is a benefit of membership to IAMSE and comes out 4 times a year electronically. You are encouraged to submit reports of your medical education scholarship (for example research or innovations). Another regular feature to the journal that you are invited to contribute is the Medical Education Case Study series. If you have an educational dilemma or problem that you would like to submit as a case study send it to me at kathryn.mcmahon@ttuhsc.edu. We will collect comments and reactions from your IAMSE colleagues as part of the case study.

Happy reading!
Kitty McMahon
Publication Committee member

JIAMSE Article Review

Dear IAMSE Colleagues,


In a recent conversation with a small group of medical students the discussion turned to wellness. The topic appeared straight-forward and center, yet too often students avoid the issue. For certain the rigors of medical school are alive and well, with 20% of medical students seeking psychiatric consultation during their undergraduate medical education. First year students are faced with apparent insurmountable work demands and adjustment to medical school. Second year students are often hypochondriacs that assume they have every imaginable new disease they study plus the stress of a heavy curriculum load and the prospects of the upcoming USMLE Step 1 examination. Third and fourth year students as well struggle with clinical rotations that present issues of life and death for the first time and residency applications, respectively.

In a recent JIAMSE issue (16[2]:86-92) (http://www.iamse.org/jiamse/volume16-2/16-2_complete.pdf) Harris et al., using a thirty-one item survey instrument, assessed the areas of sleep, diet and exercise for first and second year medical students in relation to satisfaction with life. Their findings indicate a correlation between sleep and exercise and student satisfaction. Both first and second year students averaged 6.3 hours of sleep per night, falling short of the recommended 8 hours. Although the study did not show a correlation between satisfaction and diet, a significant correlation for sleep and exercise was recognized. For first year students satisfaction was related to sleep differential, defined as the actual hours of sleep per night minus the ideal amount. Second year students judged sleep satisfaction as total hours per night. In the area of exercise there also was a correlation with life satisfaction. Both first and second year students exercised an average of 34 minutes per day, which exceeds current guidelines. In short, we are just beginning to understand the enormous value of wellness programs in the medical school environment.

The Liaison Committee on Medical Education (LCME) now encourages and mandates (http://www.lcme.org/functionslist.htm#introduction; MS-26) that medical schools have a student wellness program in place that encompasses “an effective system of personal counseling for its students that includes programs to promote the well-being of students and facilitate their adjustment to the physical and emotional demands of medical school.”



Wishing everyone a Prosperous 2009!



Floyd C. Knoop, Ph.D.

Member, IAMSE Publication Committee

JIAMSE Editorial Board

A Request from the Publications Committee

Dear IAMSE member or enthusiast,

Last summer the JIAMSE began a segment entitled “Medical Education Case Study” which we envision will become a regular piece in the journal. It will involved 2 components – 1) a case; and 2) responses to the case from 2 or more perspectives. These cases are envisioned to be around “predicaments” that faculty, students and/or administrators find themselves in about education, assessment, curriculum evaluation, faculty development, student affairs issues or other areas we all face. We invite any and all medical educators to submit cases. Also, if you are willing to act as a respondent or think you could ask a few faculty member, student or administrator at your school to act as a respondent please let us know.

You can submit your case or availability to respond to Julie Hewett at IAMSE at julie@iamse.org or myself, Kitty McMahon, at Kathryn.mcmahon@ttuhsc.edu .

Thanks for considering this request. We would love to have your dilemma as a case!
Kitty McMahon

Reminders from the IAMSE Publications Committee

I am writing to remind you to regularly access JIAMSE. It contains a wealth of information that can spark our creative juices and make us all better educators. Don’t forget to consider the journal when preparing articles for publication. JIAMSE needs increased visibility through citation of articles published in the journal so please consider this also when preparing articles about your education research.

The timing of publication types will be changed beginning with the upcoming issues. The journal will now be published four times per year and all publication types accepted may be found in each issue of the journal. You might want to review the various types of publications and consider submitting something for publication. One supplement will be published per year carrying the peer reviewed abstracts presented at the annual meeting. The supplement with the abstracts from the Salt Lake City meeting will be published shortly. In advance of that, I remind you of a couple of articles in the most recent issue of JIAMSE.

Among the several Innovations in Medical Education in the most recent supplement, Vol. 18 1S (the last supplement of this type), is the following – Use of Portfolios in a First Year Medical School Course by Norma Saks and Carol Terregino of The Robert Wood Johnson Medical School. They describe a recently implemented requirement for first year students to begin a portfolio of reflections. The portfolio requirement is tied to their Patient Centered Medicine course. Students are required to reflect on specific experiences throughout the year beginning with reflections about health care prior to even beginning medical school. Facilitators of small groups comment on each student’s entries. As a required part of the course, students must make at least one entry per month and are ultimately graded on whether they have completed the minimum requirement and whether their entries reflect thought and thorough reflection. Self reflection is an important skill for all physicians and portfolios are widely regarded as a way to begin the process. As we are exploring how to incorporate a long-term longitudinal portfolio requirement at my school, I found this approach very useful to think about.

In the same issue, a Monograph appears related in many ways to the Innovation described above. In this article, An Overview on Educating Future Physicians Concerning Professionalism, Lorraine Basnight and colleagues from East Carolina University Brody School of Medicine describe the work of a task force at their school charged with reviewing and making recommendations about the teaching and assessment of professionalism at their school. The article reviews much of the pertinent literature on defining professionalism and how it is taught and assessed. The review of the definition and characteristics of professionalism published by various groups over the past few years and the incorporation of the requirement to demonstrate the teaching and assessment of professionalism in LCME accreditation guidelines was very useful. Overall, the monograph nicely summarized current thinking about the topic and would allow anyone to get themselves up to date about thinking in this arena.

Don’t forget – you can access these and other articles at www.jiamse.org. If you have trouble accessing the current issue and your IAMSE membership is up to date, contact Julie Hewett for access information.

Happy reading!

Dani L. McBeth, Ph.D.

Publications Committee Chair

JIAMSE Article Review

(RE-POST from December 2007)

Dear IAMSE Member,
Happy Holidays!

You might remember that about 6 weeks ago Dani McBeth (Publication Committee Chair) sent you an e-mail highlighting a couple of interesting pieces in the most recent JIAMSE issue. Well this month I decided to go to the Archives and pick a couple of articles from there. If you enjoy them you might let your colleagues know that they can also access the JIAMSE archives since no User ID or Password is required. Here’s the hyperlink - jiamse.org.

I have picked an article entitled “Analysis on the Effects of Block Testing in the Medical Preclinical curriculum” by Uldis Streips et al in Volume 16 issue 2. This is a very nicely designed study from 2 schools evaluating the usefulness of consolidating testing in the preclinical curriculum. They used USMLE pass rates and absolute scores as quantitative outcome monitors and student and faculty satisfaction as qualitative outcomes. This shows how relatively “modest” changes in curricular design can make a big impact on student success. Aren’t we all looking for those kind of ideas!

Here’s a quick update to the “The Medical Educator’s Resource Guide” by John Cotter. I checked if the hyperlinks John gave were still good. I found that 2 of the 5 listed sites are still active and available to all comers – One is the Neuroscience Resource page from the University of Wisconsin and the other is the JayDoc HistoWeb page from the University of Kansas. Both are GREAT pages and wonderful resources. Check them out. The reviews given in John’s article were written by students and so they give you a student’s perspective of the pages.

Happy reading!

I hope all have a happy holiday season and wonderful New Year!

Kitty McMahon
IAMSE Publication Committee member

JIAMSE 18-1 Available

Message to IAMSE membership

It is a great pleasure to announce the publication of volume 18-1 of JIAMSE. We have a wide array of articles for your information and enjoyment. Among these, we have published the first Medical Education Case Study by Kitty McMahon. These cases will feature common educational problems and will welcome comments from the reading audience. These can be submitted to me to be evaluated and peer-reviewed as Letters to the Editor and, if accepted, will be published in succeeding volumes. To access the journal go to: http://iamse.org/member_logon.htm

I hope it is obvious that the menu of publication in JIAMSE has expanded considerably and should fit into whatever educational contribution you would choose to make. If you are not sure, come to the all day workshop, as well as the focus session, put on by Jack Scott, Floyd Knoop and me at the 12th IAMSE meeting in Salt Lake City this July 25-29. See you there.

Uldis N. Streips

JIAMSE Highlights - J15[2]:92-99 J16[1]:35-42 J16[2]:58-70

Dear IAMSE Members,

As the newest effort of the Publications Committee and Editorial Staff, I write to provide a glimpse of highlights from the Journal. Given that didactic lectures are not ideal for advanced professional learning, other initiatives and exercises, including Problem-Based Learning (PBL), have become important. Trends in medical education over the past few decades have emphasized the use of PBL as a means to actively engage students in academics.

In this context assessment and evaluation of PBL exercises have become challenging and complex issues for many medical educators. Among the numerous valuable articles in the JIAMSE ‘archive’, one by Phyllis Blumberg, Assessing Students During the Problem-Based Learning (PBL) Process (JIAMSE 15[2]: 92-99), from the University of the Sciences in Philadelphia, describes how both faculty and students can assess the PBL experience. In brief, Dr. Blumberg describes different methods in which students can be assessed based on the PBL process. The methods “reflect[s] current assessment trends” and include scoring rubrics, Likert scales and embedded and authentic assessments. These tools of evaluation provide methods for both formative and summative feedback. Two additional manuscripts on the use of student feedback in evaluation

JIAMSE.16[1]:35-42) and methods for assessment that are aligned with objectives of the PBL method (JIAMSE. 16[2]:58-70) are also available at the website (http://www.jiamse.org).

Happy reading!

Floyd C. Knoop, Ph.D.
Member, IAMSE Publication Committee
IAMSE Editorial Board