You can think of a lot such as technical procedures or washing your hands. For residents it's obvious. Mostly learning the technical procedure of an operation. During long operations I used to count the number of stitches. Once during a vascular operation the chief surgeon out of the blue asked what vessel it was they're watching, didn't have a clue. So what do medical students during their clerkship learn from attending an operation in the OR (operating room)? This hasn't been studied until recently. During their core surgical clerkship 11 medical students were observed by 2 surgical residents and 1 .....read more »

I see a lot of elderly patients while treating severe depression. I do. According to recent research during medical clerkship on an internal ward is not the same as a specialized geriatric rotation. A geriatric rotation is more effective than a traditional clerkship for medical students to understand and to care for an aging population. So why is this important. Well the authors do have a point. In these days and in the coming decades in Western societies the proportion of elderly well outnumber the amount of children. Nevertheless, our medical students receive clerkship on pediatrics but not in geriatrics. Moreover, Many students .....read more »

I've been busy today preparing education for third year medical students. It's their first engagement with psychiatry. In preparing before psychiatric examination they have to watch several video's and answer questions about the psychiatric examination. These video's were made by actors and some of them are small parts of Hollywood movies. For OCD or obsessive compulsive disorder I used a fragment of The Aviator. It's the story of the life of Howard Hughes. With The Aviator, director Martin Scorsese and star Leonardo DiCaprio breathe fresh life into this old story with a soaring and soulful portrait of the enigmatic, troubled millionaire .....read more »

Does Facebook and other social networking services damage the profession of physicians or the public trust in this profession? So far no systematic research into this topic has been published. However several cases were presented in the media resulting in disciplinary measures. On social networking sites patients may learn information about their doctors that compromises the professional relationship. Threats to patient confidentiality is another danger of facebook and other social networking sites. How to deal with this issue? Well recently discovered the best solution to this problem. Don't forbid the use of these sites or pose heavy restrictions on it's use .....read more »

In a recent study in The Netherlands the researchers found that surgical residents experienced more health complaints than the average member of the Dutch working population (4.0 versus 2.5; p = 0.000). Residents in training (n= 400) were sent self report questionnaires of which 254 of 400 (64%) residents returned questionnaires that were eligible for analysis. Why is surgical residency a stressful period? Surgical residency is a stressful period in the lives of future surgeons because it is characterised by high levels of job-related pressure and long, irregular working days. The job-associated demands on residents are high because these doctors-in-training need to .....read more »

Histrionic Personality Disorder - Symptom Media from Symptom Media on Vimeo. This video highlights the major symptoms of Histrionic Personality Disorder. Symptoms of Histrionic Personality Disorder may include: Acting or looking overly seductive, being easily influenced by other people, being overly concerned with one’s looks, being overly dramatic and emotional, being overly sensitive to criticism or disapproval, believing that relationships are more intimate than they actually are, blaming failure or disappointment on others, seeking constant reassurance or approval, having a low tolerance for frustration or delayed gratification, needing to be the center of attention (self centeredness), and quickly changing emotions .....read more »

Most physicians of my age only witnessed summative evaluations during their medical education. You studied your stuff and did an exam for which you could fail or not, go or no go. Our exams were tests aiming to summarize learning up to that point. Today most med students are evaluated with formative evaluation. Continuous evaluations carried out directly after a clinical situation or course unit. Formative evaluation is direct, teaching can be adjusted based on these evaluations and it promotes active involvement of the student. Formative evaluations have to been done often for reliable measuring of progress, it takes more valuable .....read more »

In this study psychiatrists have the highest mean empathy score on The Jefferson Scale of Physician Empathy. They were folowed by Internists, general pediatrics, emergency medicine and family medicine. The differences in empathy scores among psychiatrists and physicians in internal medicine, pediatrics, and emergency medicine were not statistically significant, but physicians in all other specialties scored significantly lower than psychiatrists. In the middle were physicians in general surgery, obstetrics and gynecology. Anesthetists scored the lowest followed by orthopedic surgery, neurosurgery, radiology and cardiovascular surgery. These differences might reflect the notion that different individuals have different empathy scores and are attracted .....read more »

Today children are often described as follows They live in social networks such as Facebook, MySpace, and Second Life gathering friends; they text more than they talk on the phone; and they Twitter the night away often sleeping with their cell phones vibrating by their sides. A recent study challenges the believes that children have multitasking skills and that these skills negatively affects the processing of information. This is about children doing their homework while twittering, texting, watching YouTube, using facebook and surfing the web. This explorative study examined whether differences exists in the academic performance of college student facebook users and .....read more »

Child prodigy Adora Svitak says the world needs "childish" thinking: bold ideas, wild creativity and especially optimism. Kids' big dreams deserve high expectations, she says, starting with grownups' willingness to learn from children as much as to teach. Related posts:Facebook Privacy Concerns in Young Adults How Risky Are Social Networking Sites for Kids Learn Deep Brain Surgery. ..read more »