Simulation is an educational tool that is almost ubiquitous in postgraduate medical training – with diverse examples of implementation – ranging from video recording of consultations with actors, to full immersion scenarios allowing trainees to test their skills and mettle in managing medical emergencies. Indeed, it is so established in some fields that there are […]
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#SoMe and #MedEd – don’t forget to head for the bed
Medical education is a major concern of the Postgraduate Medical Journal. Indeed the origins of the journal are in the need to provide medical graduates with a source of education after graduation that would keep them in touch with the goings on in the major centres of medical progress. A paper in the current issue […]
Professionalism – a team game
Professionalism is one of those peristent themes that run through medical education, and through the comments that are passed whenever there are concerns about clinical performance – be that the perceived clock watching engendered by the EWTD, or the failings at Mid Staffs. Very often the term is used to highlight either a failing, or […]
Too much medicine…
A famous quote from the eminnet paediatrician Sir Cyril Chantler was published in the BMJ in 1998: “Medicine used to be simple, ineffective, and relatively safe. It is now complex, effective, and potentially dangerous.” As medicine progresses, it is worth keeping this in mind. The complexity of modern medicine is one of the challenges […]
Are you safely socialised?
Changes in role within the medical profession are times of great upheaval. One of the most challenging is the change from being a medical student to a fully qualified doctor. A cohort of medical students qualifies every year around June/July time, and members of this cohort take their first steps on the wards and in […]
Too much information?
Medicine is an ever changing discipline. One field that continues to change the face of clinical practice, and throw up new challenges is that of radiology. The body no longer hides it’s secrets beneath skin that requires a surgeon’s skills to open up and explore, but can be encouraged to give them up through […]
What’s important to you?
Patient centred, patient focused, patient oriented, co-design, co-production, co-creation, and so on… The medical world is abuzz with the desire to make patients the central focus of all of our efforts. It is almost so blindingly obvious that patients should be at the centre of everything that we do that very often clinicians feel somewhat […]
What do all those numbers really mean doc?
Go into hospital nowadays, and you will do well to escape without having a blood test of some sort. Very often these are routine tests, which give doctors an overview of the state of play. There might be a few wayward figures here or there – but the doctors will ignore them, or explain […]
50% of what you are taught is wrong…
There is a phrase in medical education which often gets aired at the welcoming lecture to medical school: “50% of what we teach you over the next five years will be wrong, or inaccurate. Sadly, we don’t know which 50%” Quite why those welcoming students to a rigorous, physically and mentally demanding degree course would […]
Yes to one thing… no to the others.
One of the perennial problems that faces doctors who are in direct contact with patients is time management. It is the one resource we all have to allocate, and with the multitude of different roles we all have to play – parent / sibling / doctor / teacher / friend / spouse / […]