Training Methodologies

The goals of this study were to demonstrate an evidence-based approach towards developing undergraduate palliative care educatio ncurricula and investigate the change in medical students’ self-perceived readiness to deal with palliative care patients and their families. [from abstract]

High-risk prescribing in primary care is common and causes considerable harm. Feedback interventions to improve care are attractive because they are relatively cheap to widely implement. There is good evidence that feedback has small to moderate effects, but the most recent Cochrane review called for more high-quality, large trials that explicitly test different forms of feedback. This paper describes a protocol for a cluster-randomised trial evaluating the impact on high-risk prescribing of two different designs of feedback compared to a simple educational message. [from author]

Competency-based education (CBE) provides a useful alternative to time-based models for preparing health professionals and constructing educational programs. The authors argue that because CBE begins with a careful consideration of the competencies desired in the health professional workforce to address health care priorities, it provides a vehicle for integrating the health needs of the country with the values of the profession. [from abstract]

This study evaluated participant satisfaction of an interactive educational program that offers peer-to-peer training to physicians and their office staff on topics ranging from clinical tools/skills to office management relevant to general practitioner practices. [adapted from abstract]

The aim of this study was to transform the Clinical Practice Guideline for Perinatal Mortality into an education workshop to develop quality standardised interactive education acceptable to participants for learning skills in collaborative interprofessional care. [adapted from abstract]

The study objective was to apprehend changes in the attitude of healthcare staff to abuse in healthcare after an intervention, based on a program called “Forum Play.” [adapted from author]

The objective of this study was to pilot an action learning group program, (an informal, practically based management training program which allow trainees to reflect on their own work environment) with managers in a rural public health setting and to explore participants’ experience of the program. [adapted from abstract]

Virtual worlds are increasingly being explored as a support for education. The aim of this work was to study the suitability of Second Life as an educational tool for primary healthcare professionals. [from abstract]

This study aimed to evaluate perceived and assessed clinical capabilities of recent graduates of an outcomes-based integrated medical program and compare to benchmarks from traditional content-based or process-based programs. [from abstract]

This study aimed to assess whether the use of cell phone text messaging to improve access to continuing healthcare education in under-resourced settings is acceptable to South African midwives in both the public and private sectors. [adapted from author]

This brief discusses interprofessional education as an emerging theme in the education of health care professionals in response to issues such as patient safety and workforce shortages. [from abstract]

The absence national institutions committed to the synthesis and use of evidence in healthcare decision- and policy-making creates a need to broaden the responsibilities of healthcare providers to include knowledge brokering and advocacy in order to optimize knowledge translation to other stakeholders, especially policy-makers. This article introduces two methods for capacity building in knowledge translation for healthcare providers. [adapted from abstract]

In an effort to facilitate the social service workforce to meet the needs of a larger population, a number of training models have been developed to equip local community members with basic social work skills and support them to work with vulnerable children and families under the supervision of social work professionals. This webinar presented several promising training models currently implemented in several countries in Sub-Saharan Africa. [from summary]

This report outlines a sustainable cascade training approach to train a subset of the doctors, nurses, and clinical officers who provide long-acting and permanent methods (LA/PM) to serve as district-level LA/PM trainers. These trainers trained other doctors, nurses, and clinical officers in their districts to offer LA/PMs.

This paper presents a short preliminary report of how the Italian National Institute of Health has, since 2003, applied problem-based learning in a new approach called One Day-One Problem Problem-based Learning in short courses for the staff of the Italian National Health Service. [from abstract]

For more than 25 years, family medicine residencies have worked with community health centers (CHCs) to train family physicians. This study compares CHC and non-CHC-trained family physicians regarding practice location, job and training satisfaction, and recruitment and retention to underserved areas. [from author]

This pilot-test evaluation looked at feasibility as well as acceptability of structured on the job training as an intervention to improve the performance of providers. [from author]

This document reviews challenges and approaches to popular methodologies and applications of clinical HIV training in order to address the question of what is the optimal approach to training the health workforce for an expanding HIV-treatment program in a resource-limited setting. [adapted from author]

It is necessary to establish cooperation mechanisms between universities and health services in order to be able to adapt education of the health professionals to a universal and equitable model of service delivery and quality care. This report outlines the design of a competencies-based curriculum plan and syllabus for five universities in Peru. [adapted from author]

The objective of this study was to make a comprehensive assessment of community-based education (CBE) as implemented by Ugandan health professional training institutions to document the nature of CBE conducted and propose an ideal model with minimum requirements for health professional training institutions in Uganda. [adapted from abstract]

The Master of Medicine program is the clinical specialist postgraduate training started in response to increased training costs of specialists abroad, brain drain and an increasing demand for local specialists. The program’s objective were to produce specialists locally who would be easier to retain and able to work in district hospitals. The training costs would be proportionately less. This study reviews the outcome of the postgraduate program and assess whether the original intentions have been met to date. [adapted from introduction]

The aim of this study was to compare the effect on students’ knowledge of a simulation session versus an image-based lecture, for teaching routine management of normal delivery and resolution of shoulder dystocia to midwives in training. [from abstract]

This document outlines the Takamol project in which a corporate training and management methodology was adapted for developing and sustaining quality management teams from governorate to district to clinic levels. [adapted from author]

The authors designed and delivered a pilot postgraduate medical education program in the virtual world, Second Life to explore the potential of a virtual world for delivering continuing medical education (CME) designed for physicians; determine possible instructional designs using SL for CME; understand the limitations of SL for CME; understand the barriers, solutions, and costs associated with using SL, including required training; and measure participant learning outcomes and feedback. [adapted from abstract]

This article summarizes a project that tested whether mobile learning in combination with social media might provide a solution for the lack of training for health care workers scattered across the country. [adapted from author]

This article presents an innovative approach to healthcare worker (HCW) training using mobile phones as a personal learning environment. Twenty physicians used individual Smartphones in urban and peri-urban HIV/AIDS clinics in Peru, where almost 70% of the nations HIV patients in need of treatment. [adapted from abstract]

This article outlines the Latin American Medical School program model which trains young people from developing countries and sends them home as doctors with a pledge to practise in underserved areas. [adapted from author]

At a time when the world is facing a shortage of health workers, policymakers are looking for innovative strategies that can help them develop policy and programmes to bolster the global health workforce. This document highlights the current status of interprofessional collaboration around the world, identifies the mechanisms that shape successful collaborative teamwork and outlines a series of action items that policymakers can apply within their local health system.

Working in a hospital during an extraordinary infectious disease outbreak can cause significant stress and contribute to healthcare workers choosing to reduce patient contact. Psychological training of healthcare workers prior to an influenza pandemic may reduce stress-related absenteeism, however, established training methods that change behavior and attitudes are too resource-intensive for widespread use.

Interactive methods like role play, recorded video scenarios and objective structured clinical exam are being regularly used to teach and assess communication skills of medical students in the western world. In developing countries however, they are still in the preliminary phases of execution in most institutes. Our study was conducted in a naive under resourced setup to assess the impact of such teaching methodologies on the counseling skills of medical students. [from abstract]