ABSTRACT Introduction Junior doctors are responsible for a substantial number of prescribing errors, and final-year medical students lack sufficient prescribing knowledge and skills just before they graduate. Various national and international projects have been initiated to reform the teaching of clinical pharmacology and therapeutics (CP&T) during undergraduate medical training. However, there is as yet no list of commonly prescribed and available medicines that European doctors should be able to independently prescribe safely and effectively without direct supervision. Such a list could form the basis for a European Prescribing Exam and would harmonise European CP&T education. Therefore, the aim of this study is to reach consensus on a list of widely prescribed medicines, available in most European countries, that European junior doctors should be able to independently prescribe safely and effectively without direct supervision: the European List of Essential Medicines for Medical Education. Methods and analysis This modified Delphi study will recruit European CP&T teachers (expert group). Two Delphi rounds will be carried out to enable a list to be drawn up of medicines that are available in ≥80% of European countries, which are considered standard prescribing practice, and which junior doctors should be able to prescribe safely and effectively without supervision. Ethics and dissemination The study has been approved by the Medical Ethics Review Committee of VU University Medical Center (no. 2020.335) and by the Ethical Review Board of the Netherlands Association for Medical Education (approved project no. NVMO‐ERB 2020.4.8). The European List of Essential Medicines for Medical Education will be presented at national and international conferences and will be submitted to international peer-reviewed journals. It will also be used to develop and implement the European Prescribing Exam.
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Aims: Prescribing errors among junior doctors are common in clinical practice because many lack prescribing competence after graduation. This is in part due to inadequate education in clinical pharmacology and therapeutics (CP&T) in the undergraduate medical curriculum. To support CP&T education, it is important to determine which drugs medical undergraduates should be able to prescribe safely and effectively without direct supervision by the time they graduate. Currently, there is no such list with broad-based consensus. Therefore, the aim was to reach consensus on a list of essential drugs for undergraduate medical education in the Netherlands. Methods: A two-round modified Delphi study was conducted among pharmacists, medical specialists, junior doctors and pharmacotherapy teachers from all eight Dutch academic hospitals. Participants were asked to indicate whether it was essential that medical graduates could prescribe specific drugs included on a preliminary list. Drugs for which ≥80% of all respondents agreed or strongly agreed were included in the final list. Results: In all, 42 (65%) participants completed the two Delphi rounds. A total of 132 drugs (39%) from the preliminary list and two (3%) newly proposed drugs were included. Conclusions: This is the first Delphi consensus study to identify the drugs that Dutch junior doctors should be able to prescribe safely and effectively without direct supervision. This list can be used to harmonize and support the teaching and assessment of CP&T. Moreover, this study shows that a Delphi method is suitable to reach consensus on such a list, and could be used for a European list.
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Rational prescribing is essential for the quality of health care. However, many final-year medical students and junior doctors lack prescribing competence to perform this task. The availability of a list of medicines that a junior doctor working in Europe should be able to independently prescribe safely and effectively without supervision could support and harmonize teaching and training in clinical pharmacology and therapeutics (CPT) in Europe. Therefore, our aim was to achieve consensus on such a list of medicines that are widely accessible in Europe. For this, we used a modified Delphi study method consisting of three parts. In part one, we created an initial list based on a literature search. In part two, a group of 64 coordinators in CPT education, selected via the Network of Teachers in Pharmacotherapy of the European Association for Clinical Pharmacology and Therapeutics, evaluated the accessibility of each medicine in his or her country, and provided a diverse group of experts willing to participate in the Delphi part. In part three, 463 experts from 24 European countries were invited to participate in a 2-round Delphi study. In total, 187 experts (40%) from 24 countries completed both rounds and evaluated 416 medicines, 98 of which were included in the final list. The top three Anatomical Therapeutic Chemical code groups were (1) cardiovascular system (n = 23), (2) anti-infective (n = 21), and (3) musculoskeletal system (n = 11). This European List of Key Medicines for Medical Education could be a starting point for country-specific lists and could be used for the training and assessment of CPT.
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The concepts of metacognitive refection, refection, and metacognition are distinct but have undergone shifts in meaning as they migrated into medical education. Conceptual clarity is essential to the construction of the knowledge base of medical education and its educational interventions. We conducted a theoretical integrative review across diverse bodies of literature with the goal of understanding what metacognitive refection is. We searched PubMed, Embase, CINAHL, PsychInfo, and Web of Science databases, including all peer-reviewed research articles and theoretical papers as well as book chapters that addressed the topic, with no limitations for date, language, or location. A total of 733 articles were identified and 87 were chosen after careful review and application of exclusion criteria. The work of conceptually and empirically delineating metacognitive reflection has begun. Contributions have been made to root metacognitive refection in the concept of metacognition and moving beyond it to engage in cycles of refection. Other work has underscored its affective component, transformational nature, and contextual factors. Despite this merging of threads to develop a richer conceptualization, a theory of how metacognitive refection works is elusive. Debates address whether metacognition drives refection or vice versa. It has also been suggested that learners evolve along on a continuum from thinking, to task-related refection, to self-refection, and finally to metacognitive refection. Based on prior theory and research, as well as the findings of this review, we propose the following conceptualization: Metacognitive refection involves heightened internal observation, awareness, monitoring, and regulation of our own knowledge, experiences, and emotions by questioning and examining cognition and emotional processes to continually refine and enhance our perspectives and decisions while thoughtfully accounting for context. We argue that metacognitive refection brings a shift in perspective and can support valuable reconceptualization for lifelong learning.
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The Junior Adverse Drug Event Manager (J-ADEM) team is a multifaceted intervention focusing on real-life education for medical students that has been shown to assist healthcare professionals in managing and reporting suspected adverse drug reactions (ADRs) to the Netherlands Pharmacovigilance Centre Lareb. The aim of this study was to quantify and describe the ADRs reported by the J-ADEM team and to determine the clinical potential of this approach. The J-ADEM team consisted of medical students tasked with managing and reporting ADRs in hospitalized patients. All ADRs screened and reported by J-ADEM team were recorded anonymously, and categorized and analysed descriptively. From August 2018 through January 2020, 209 patients on two wards in an academic hospital were screened for ADR events. The J-ADEM team reported 101 ADRs. Although most ADRs (67%) were first identified by healthcare professionals and then reported by the J-ADEM team, the team also reported an additional 33 not previously identified serious ADRs. In 10% of all reported ADRs, the J-ADEM team helped optimize ADR treatment. The ADR reports were largely well-documented (78%), and ADRs were classified as type A (66%), had a moderate or severe severity (85%) and were predominantly avoidable reactions (69%). This study shows that medical students are able to screen patients for ADRs, can identify previously undetected ADRs and can help optimize ADR management. They significantly increased (by 300%) the number of ADR reports submitted, showing that the J-ADEM team can make a valuable clinical contribution to hospital care.
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To prepare medical students appropriately for the management of toxicological emergencies, we have developed a simulation-based medical education (SBME) training in acute clinical toxicology. Our aim is to report on the feasibility, evaluation and lessons learned of this training. Since 2019, each year approximately 180 fifth-year medical students are invited to participate in the SBME training. The training consists of an interactive lecture and two SBME stations. For each station, a team of students had to perform the primary assessment and management of an intoxicated patient. After the training, the students completed a questionnaire about their experiences and confidence in clinical toxicology. Overall, the vast majority of students agreed that the training provided a fun, interactive and stimulating way to teach about clinical toxicology. Additionally, they felt more confident regarding their skills in this area. Our pilot study shows that SBME training was well-evaluated and feasible over a longer period.
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LETTER TO THE EDITOR: Many doctors take on prescribing responsibilities shortly after they graduate [1, 2], but fnal-year medical students not only feel insecure about prescribing, but also lack adequate knowledge and skills to prescribe rationally and safely [3, 4]. To address this public health concern, the European Association for Clinical Pharmacology and Therapeutics (EACPT) recommended that education in clinical pharmacology and therapeutics (CP&T) in Europe should be modernized and harmonized [5]. The frst step towards harmonization was taken in 2018 when CP&T experts reached consensus on the key learning outcomes for CP&T education in Europe [6]. The next step was to assess these outcomes in a uniform examination during undergraduate medical training [7–9]. The Prescribing Safety Assessment (United Kingdom) and the Dutch National Pharmacotherapy Assessment (The Netherlands) are currently the only national CP&T examinations [10–13]. Implementing these examinations in other European countries is difcult because of related costs and diferences in available drugs and guidelines. Therefore, in 2019, together with nine European universities, the EACPT, and the World Health Organization Europe, we started a 3-year Erasmus+-project (2019–1-NL01-KA203-060,492) to develop, test and implement an online examination on safe prescribing for medical schools in Europe: “The European Prescribing Exam” (EuroPE+, https://www.prescribingeducation.eu/). The aim of The European Prescribing Exam is to ensure that medical students in Europe graduate with prescribing competencies for safe and efective clinical practice. During the frst stage of the project, we established that EuroPE+ should focus not only on safe prescribing (e.g. contraindications, interactions) but also on broader aspects of CP&T (e.g. deprescribing, communication, personalized medicine). We identifed 43 main learning objectives and 299 attainment targets, based on previous European studies of CP&T education and the Dutch National Pharmacotherapy Assessment [6, 14, 15]. The attainment targets concern eight drug groups that junior doctors should be confdent about prescribing because these drugs are commonly prescribed or are a major cause of adverse events [16]
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Abstract Aims: Medical case vignettes play a crucial role in medical education, yet they often fail to authentically represent diverse patients. Moreover, these vignettes tend to oversimplify the complex relationship between patient characteristics and medical conditions, leading to biased and potentially harmful perspectives among students. Displaying aspects of patient diversity, such as ethnicity, in written cases proves challenging. Additionally, creating these cases places a significant burden on teachers in terms of labour and time. Our objective is to explore the potential of artificial intelligence (AI)-assisted computer-generated clinical cases to expedite case creation and enhance diversity, along with AI-generated patient photographs for more lifelike portrayal. Methods: In this study, we employed ChatGPT (OpenAI, GPT 3.5) to develop diverse and inclusive medical case vignettes. We evaluated various approaches and identified a set of eight consecutive prompts that can be readily customized to accommodate local contexts and specific assignments. To enhance visual representation, we utilized Adobe Firefly beta for image generation. Results: Using the described prompts, we consistently generated cases for various assignments, producing sets of 30 cases at a time. We ensured the inclusion of mandatory checks and formatting, completing the process within approximately 60 min per set. Conclusions: Our approach significantly accelerated case creation and improved diversity, although prioritizing maximum diversity compromised representativeness to some extent. While the optimized prompts are easily reusable, the process itself demands computer skills not all educators possess. To address this, we aim to share all created patients as open educational resources, empowering educators to create cases independently.
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Background: Although medical courses are frequently evaluated via surveys with Likert scales ranging from “strongly agree” to “strongly disagree,” low response rates limit their utility. In undergraduate medical education, a new method with students predicting what their peers would say, required fewer respondents to obtain similar results. However, this prediction-based method lacks validation for continuing medical education (CME), which typically targets a more heterogeneous group than medical students. Methods: In this study, 597 participants of a large CME course were randomly assigned to either express personal opinions on a five-point Likert scale (opinion-based method; n = 300) or to predict the percentage of their peers choosing each Likert scale option (prediction-based method; n = 297). For each question, we calculated the minimum numbers of respondents needed for stable average results using an iterative algorithm. We compared mean scores and the distribution of scores between both methods. Results: The overall response rate was 47%. The prediction-based method required fewer respondents than the opinion-based method for similar average responses. Mean response scores were similar in both groups for most questions, but prediction-based outcomes resulted in fewer extreme responses (strongly agree/disagree). Conclusions: We validated the prediction-based method in evaluating CME. We also provide practical considerations for applying this method.
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Purpose In postgraduate medical education, guided group reflection is often applied to support professional identity formation. However, little is known about how guided group reflection is shaped and how it works. Our scoping review synthesizes existing evidence about various approaches for guided group reflection, their aims, components and potential working mechanisms. Methods We conducted a scoping review using JBI (Joanna Briggs Institute) guidelines for conducting scoping reviews. We searched PubMed, PsycINFO, EMBASE and ERIC databases for all research articles published in English or Dutch in an iterative team approach. The articles were extracted and summarized quantitatively and qualitatively. Results We included 71 papers (45 primary research papers and 26 non-empirical papers including program descriptions, theoretical concepts and personal experiences). We identified a diversity of approaches for guided group reflection (e.g. Balint groups, supervised collaborative reflection and exchange of experiences), applied in a variety of didactic formats and aims. We distilled potential working mechanisms relating to engagement in reflection, group learning and the supervisor’s role. Conclusions There are significant knowledge gaps about the aims and underlying mechanisms of guided group reflection. Future systematic research on these topics is needed to understand the effectiveness of educational methods, that can help facilitate learning conditions to best shape professional identity formation (PIF) in educational curricula.
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