BACKGROUND In 2002 Lehigh Valley Hospital and Health Network Internal Medicine residency program sought to establish a faculty development program for their teaching faculty that emphasized learner-centered teaching of patient-centered care. DESCRIPTION Medical educators trained in observational research practices shadowed teaching teams for 24 months and observed 24 General Internal Medicine...

BACKGROUND To ensure the quality of surgical teaching within our graduate entry medical program, a distinctive surgical teaching program has been developed at Sydney Medical School-Central. Spanning 2 years, the program includes lectures, small group surgical clinical tutorials, and formal student surgical grand rounds presentations, plus clinical placements and attendance in operating theaters...

Bedside teaching has long been considered the most effective method to teach clinical skills and communication skills. Despite this belief, the frequency of bedside rounds is decreasing and it is believed that this is a major factor causing a sharp decline in trainees' clinical skills. Several barriers appear to contribute to this lack of teaching at the bedside and have been discussed extensiv...

The importance of patient-centered care and the role of families in decision-making are becoming more recognized. Starting with a single acute care unit, a multidisciplinary improvement team at Cincinnati Children's Hospital developed and implemented a new process that allows families to decide if they want to be part of attending-physician rounds. Family involvement seems to improve communicat...

BACKGROUND There is compelling evidence to suggest that undergraduate surgical education may fail to provide appropriate instruction in basic surgical principles and skills. METHODS We completed a descriptive, cross-sectional survey of stakeholder groups (surgeon educators and recent medical school graduates) to assess the perceived relevance and learning for surgical principles, surgical ski...