Understanding the Millennial Physician

A concept for adapting medical education to the next generations via three-staged digital peer teaching key feature cases

While the core principles of medical education remain the same, the students' socioecological backgrounds, values and learning requirements are constantly changing. Bridging the generation gap between teachers and students is a key challenge of medical didactics. To meet the demands of today's classroom, we piloted a novel three-stage peer teaching and key feature concept. First, an on-demand key feature video case was presented. Second a background video was launched, followed by a self-assessment tool. Third, a live case discussion webinar focusing on clinical reasoning was held. The contents were created by near-peers experienced in medical didactics and checked by clinical experts. The elective format resonated with 652 participating graduate students and 1250 interactions per webinar, suggesting that students' strengths and weaknesses were addressed adequately. We aim to provide educators with input for creating a flexible and integrative learning environment utilising modern technological and didactic tools that shape the healthcare workers of tomorrow.

A single-center, cross-sectional study of cross-professional faculties' perception to virtual class under different scenarios: A stepwise approach

BACKGROUND

Virtual teaching in medical education is rising with the increased need caused by the recent pandemic. However, evaluations of the perception of clinical teachers across professions for setting a virtual class in different teaching scenarios are limited. This study aims to identify cross-professional clinical teachers' perception of virtual classes and the acceptability of the virtual class-specific checklist for setting a virtual class.

METHODS

We conducted a cross-sectional study to investigate clinical teachers' need to set and teach a virtual class and then designed a virtual class-specific checklist with five essential steps and a related training program in July 2021. After the training, 186 participants were randomly enrolled in October 2021 to evaluate their perceptions about setting virtual classes and the acceptability of the virtual class-specific checklist using an online assessment questionnaire.

RESULTS

In our institution, the number of faculty-led virtual classes has recently been on the increase. Our study revealed that most teachers agreed that virtual classes could break space and time limitations, but that the Internet environment could affect the fluency of the virtual class. They further agreed that the essential five steps in the checklist should vary depending on the type of teaching scenario. Most clinical teachers, with the exception of those who teach in the operating room, considered the operating room as the most difficult scenario for setting virtual classes.

CONCLUSION

Faculty training for setting virtual classes is essential, and the essential virtual class-specific five steps are suitable for different teachers and teaching scenarios. However, the virtual class-specific checklist should be further adjusted according to the limitations caused by emerging innovative virtual teaching technology.

It's the message not the medium: Ethics in pediatric surgery communication

New communication technologies and generational differences in communication techniques create ethical challenges for pediatric surgeons. Using two hypothetical cases we explore the ethics of modern communication in pediatric surgery. The first case explores the ethics of text messaging with patients and families and of social media posts, both of which have useful ethical analogues in older communication technologies. The second case explores ways that generational experiential differences in learning can foster misunderstandings between team members at different levels of training and potentially impact important medical care decisions. The ethical rules that govern the delivery of patient care also apply to what we say and how we say it. Effective, ethical and compassionate communication will often be the aspect of therapy most appreciated by the patient and family.