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Author: Brian S McGowan, PhD

ABSTRACT: Physicians who use social media and other internet-based communication technologies.

AbstractThe demographic and practice-related characteristics of physicians who use social networking websites, portable devices to access the internet, email to communicate with patients, podcasts, widgets, RSS feeds, and blogging were investigated. Logistic regression was used to analyze a survey of US primary care physicians, pediatricians, obstetrician/gynecologists, and dermatologists N=1750. Reported technology use during the last 6 months ranged from 80.6% using a portable device to access the internet to 12.9% writing a blog. The most consistent predictors of use were being male, being younger, and having teaching hospital privileges. Physician specialty, practice setting, years in practice, average number of patients treated per week, and number of physicians in practice were found to be inconsistently associated or unassociated with use of the technologies examined. Demographic characteristics, rather than practice-related characteristics, were more consistent predictors of physician use of seven internet-based communication technologies with varying levels of uptake.

via Physicians who use social medi… [J Am Med Inform Assoc. 2012 Nov-Dec] – PubMed – NCBI.

MANUSCRIPT: Using databases in medical education research: AMEE Guide No. 77

Abstract
This AMEE Guide offers an introduction to the use of databases in medical education research. It is intended for those who are contemplating conducting research in medical education but are new to the field. The Guide is structured around the process of planning your research so that data collection, management and analysis are appropriate for the research question. Throughout we consider contextual possibilities and constraints to educational research using databases, such as the resources available, and provide concrete examples of medical education research to illustrate many points. The first section of the Guide explains the difference between different types of data and classifying data, and addresses the rationale for research using databases in medical education. We explain the difference between qualitative research and qualitative data, the difference between categorical and quantitative data, and the difference types of data which fall into these categories. The Guide reviews the strengths and weaknesses of qualitative and quantitative research. The next section is structured around how to work with quantitative and qualitative databases and provides guidance on the many practicalities of setting up a database. This includes how to organise your database, including anonymising data and coding, as well as preparing and describing your data so it is ready for analysis. The critical matter of the ethics of using databases in medical educational research, including using routinely collected data versus data collected for research purposes, and issues of confidentiality, is discussed. Core to the Guide is drawing out the similarities and differences in working with different types of data and different types of databases. Future AMEE Guides in the research series will address statistical analysis of data in more detail.

http://informahealthcare.com/doi/pdf/10.3109/0142159X.2013.785632

RESOURCE: The MOOC School of Medicine

The pedagogical advances occurring in the world of education are certainly fast paced. Didactic lecture hall teaching is now outdated courtesy of problem and team based learning in addition to the novel approach of the ‘flipped classroom’.

With the advent of technology and emphasis on E and M learning, we are now experiencing an era of continuous educational revolution with MOOC’s being evident of this phenomenon. Such massive open online courses have sparked from the fact that in the vast majority of cases people are often unable to gain education from world renowned institutions if not physically resident in such areas or unable to gain education due to issues allied to affordability.

via MedEdWorld – The MOOC School of Medicine.

ReachMD Interview: “Understanding Personal Learning Strategies in Medical Education”

A few weeks back I had the pleasure of being interviewed by Lawrence Sherman as part of the ReachMD lifelong learning series produced in conjunction with the Alliance for CEhp.  The interview is airing all this week on ReachMD (channel 167 on SiriusXM) and the podcast is available for download on ReachMD.com (after registering). The interview touches on a number of topics related to how clinicians form questions in practice, how they structure their learning opportunities, and (of course) the natural learning actions model.

Here is the summary of the interview as described on the reachMD site:

Physicians and other medical professionals face an endless array of options for how to approach their own continuing education throughout their clinical careers. But there is a science behind learning behaviors that can help improve the quality of clinical education at the individual level. How is this science being investigated, and what are the practical applications for lifelong learning? Join host Lawrence Sherman in welcoming Dr. Brian McGowan, Chief Learning Officer of ArcheMedX, Inc, to consider this personalized CME movement and its potential impacts on medical careers.

Enjoy!

[soundcloud url=”http://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/89035260%3Fsecret_token%3Ds-fpL0o” params=”” width=” 100%” height=”166″ iframe=”true” /]

 

The interview will air 20 times this week (All times Eastern)

Monday 2:40 AM, 2:40 PM and 7:00 AM, 7:00 PMREACHMD logo
Tuesday 12:40 AM, 12:40 PM and 5:00 AM, 5:00 PM
Wednesday 10:40 AM, 10:40 PM and 3:00 AM, 3:00 PM
Thursday 8:40 AM, 8:40 PM and 1:00 AM, 1:00 PM
Friday 6:40 AM, 6:40 PM and 11:00 AM, 11:00 PM

For what it is worth, I recommend the entire series and would love to see more of this broad sharing and dissemination being leveraged across the medical education community.  Kudos to the Alliance and ReachMD for continuing this series, and here’s hoping that we can build this out over time.

ABSTRACT: Barriers to Improving Primary Care of Depression

Using clinical trials, researchers have demonstrated effective methods for treating depression in primary care, but improvements based on these trials are not being implemented. This might be because these improvements require more systematic organizational changes than can be made by individual physicians. We interviewed 82 physicians and administrative leaders of 41 medical groups to learn what is preventing those organizational changes. The identified barriers to improving care included external contextual problems reimbursement, scarce resources, and access to/communication with specialty mental health, individual attitudes physician and patient resistance, and internal care process barriers organizational and condition complexity, difficulty standardizing and measuring care. Although many of these barriers are challenging, we can overcome them by setting clear priorities for change and allocating adequate resources. We must improve primary care of depression if we are to reduce its enormous adverse social and economic impacts.

via Barriers to Improving Primary Care of Depression.

ABSTRACT: Public Reflection as the Basis of Learning

It is through public reflection that we may create a collective identity as a community of inquiry. But how does public reflection differ from introspection, and how does it contribute to self and organizational learning? In this article, the author uncovers the many traditions which constitute the process of critical reflective practice, as may be practiced as part of a project-based learning experience. After defining the concept, the article illustrates why reflection is fundamental to learning and how it can be brought out in the company of trusted others through dialogue. The article goes on to illuminate the relationships between public reflection and the common good, experience, and time, as well as to characterize the skills associated with reflective practice.

via Public Reflection as the Basis of Learning.

RESOURCE: How natural language processing can help EHRs

Consider natural language processing (NLP), a technology that can produce readable summaries of chunks of text. Basic examples of NLP include social media, newspaper articles, and, as the Parliament of Canada and the European Union have done, translating governmental proceedings into all official languages. But this is just the tip of the iceberg. NLP can do much, much more, including deciphering doctors’ notes and other unstructured information generated during patient visits. NLP can take EHRs to an entirely different level.

While turning unstructured data into something useful may not get your juices flowing, many people feel passionately about the sub­ject. Count among them tech-savvy doctors like Jaan Sidorov and Kevin Pho, the web’s top social media influencer in health care and medicine according to Klout. In an article on KevinMD (Pho’s site), Sidorov cites statistics that an astonishing 80 percent of clinical docu­mentation existing in health care today is unstructured. Yet that infor­mation is largely ignored

via How natural language processing can help EHRs.

RESOURCE: How to be better at searching online?

Do you want to become better at searching online? The advice I give to my students is that it works just like with other skills: You need to practice more and more. The best way is to do this in an organized manner and that’s what “A Google A Day“, a new game on Google+ provides.

It asks you special questions in many topics and you have to find the solution through online search. It will give you hints or even show you the right search terms.

You can also check the Google Story prezi with post-test in The Social MEDia Course.

via How to be better at searching online? | ScienceRoll.

ABSTRACT: The role of ePortfolios in supporting continuing professional development in practice.

Abstract
ePortfolios, based on models of reflective practice, are viewed as important tools in facilitating and supporting lifelong learning across the medical education continuum. MAINPORT, the ePortfolio designed by the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada, supports the continuing professional development (CPD) and lifelong learning of specialist physicians practicing in Canada by providing tools to develop CPD plans, set and track progress of established learning goals, document and reflect on learning activities, and create the foundation for physicians to manage their learning. In this article, the authors summarize the key design principles of the Royal College’s ePortfolio: learner-centered; interoperable; ease of access. The current core functionality as well as future planned functionality for MAINPORT are described under three domains: recording and reflecting on completed CPD activities; managing learning in practice; accessing learning resources and programs. The future MAINPORT will evolve to become a foundational tool to support the shift towards competency-based medical education across the continuum of medical education; from residency to retirement. MAINPORT will facilitate the ability of physicians to demonstrate their expertise over time and how their learning has enabled improvements to their practice in contributing to improved health outcomes for patients.

via The role of ePortfolios in supporting continuing p… [Med Teach. 2013] – PubMed – NCBI.

RESOURCE: 5 Potential Ways MOOCs Will Evolve

In order to understand where MOOCs are heading (at least taking a stab at guessing their future), it’s important to know what the stated goals are. In case you’re still new to MOOCs, here’s a helpful rundown of the guiding principles behind MOOCs:

Aggregation. The whole point of a connectivist MOOC is to provide a starting point for a massive amount of content to be produced in different places online, which is later aggregated as a newsletter or a web page accessible to participants on a regular basis. This is in contrast to traditional courses, where the content is prepared ahead of time.
The second principle is remixing, that is, associating materials created within the course with each other and with materials elsewhere.
Re-purposing of aggregated and remixed materials to suit the goals of each participant.
Feeding forward, sharing of re-purposed ideas and content with other participants and the rest of the world.

via 5 Potential Ways MOOCs Will Evolve | Edudemic.