Updates and Reviews of Medical Education Research
- Dr. MERL Dependable Reviews of the Medical Education Research LiteratureDR MERL is a joint project of the Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson Library of the Health Sciences and MERIG (Medical Education Research Interest Group). All reviews are written by Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson Medical School and Rutgers New Jersey Medical School faculty. Learn more about DR MERL and the reviewers here. http://drmerl.wordpress.com/about/
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- Teaching the Teachers: Defining Essential Skills for Future Clinician EducatorsThis link opens in a new windowMar 21, 2025Communicating feedback, teaching in diverse settings, and fostering a conducive learning climate are among the most essential teaching skills for internal medicine residents in clinician educator tracks (CET), according to Klein et al. Using a modified Delphi approach, this study … Continue reading
- I’m a hospitalized patient who wants to survive. Please send me that female doctor with high USMLE certifying exam scores. This link opens in a new windowFeb 29, 2024Researchers assessed mortality and length of stay (LOS) for nearly 200,000 patients hospitalized in Pennsylvania for five common diagnoses who were cared for by physicians certified in either family medicine or internal medicine. Average inpatient mortality was about 2%. After … Continue reading
- More On The Problems of US News & World Report Rankings This link opens in a new windowAug 24, 2023A student and a faculty member from Duke have written a succinct and practical critique of US News and World Report (USNWR) rankings. Duke University School of Medicine, along with many other institutions recently, has withdrawn from participation in the … Continue reading
- From Community College to Medical SchoolThis link opens in a new windowAug 8, 2023A study of 2.1 million medical school applications from 2018-2020 using data from the American Medical College Application Service (AMCAS) found that applicants who attended or took courses in community college (about 35% of all applicants) were less likely to … Continue reading
- Are ACGME Milestones Predictive of Early Career Clinical Performance?This link opens in a new windowApr 5, 2023Maybe not, according to a recent retrospective study based on Medicare claims for common high-risk inpatient general surgical procedures (N=12,400 cases) from 2015-2018 by non-fellowship trained US general surgeons (N=701). In contrast to prior validity evidence for milestones to predict … Continue reading
- Teaching Clinical Reasoning Early This link opens in a new windowJan 25, 2023Clinical reasoning is either not explicitly taught or taught to more experienced learners. In this study, educators at Weill Cornell medical school assessed the impact of a theory-informed clinical reasoning curriculum for first year medical students before they’ve had much … Continue reading
- Unmatched and Unwanted?This link opens in a new windowDec 16, 2022A study of 206 comments on the online discussion forum Reddit reveals that between 2021 and 2022 US and Canadian medical students who did not match into residency programs showed signs of regret for having attended (and paid for!) medical … Continue reading
- Are the Increasing Numbers of Out-of-State Students at State-“Supported” Medical Schools a Good Thing?This link opens in a new windowNov 11, 2022This nationwide study of US MD-granting schools reports two concerning and possibly related trends. Over the past 15 years or so, the number of out-of-state applicants and matriculants to state-sponsored schools has gone up substantially. This is generally helpful to … Continue reading
- What Do Teaching Evaluations Evaluate?This link opens in a new windowOct 11, 2022In this readable commentary about the value of teaching evaluations(TEs) by students, the authors summarize a lot of evidence suggesting that TEs measure a lot of things other than teaching, for example attractiveness and charisma, and that they should not … Continue reading
- It’s A DIY World for Medical Education ResearchersThis link opens in a new windowJul 5, 2022Medical education research lab is an emerging model for conducting medical education research. Defined as a distinct research team led by single or multiple PIs to study specific problems, medical education research lab is a strategic attempt at overcoming the well-recognized … Continue reading
