A writer’s guide to education scholarship: Quantitative methodologies for medical education research (part 1)

Workplace-based Assessment Data in Emergency Medicine: A Scoping Review of the Literature

OBJECTIVE

In the era of competency-based medical education (CBME), the collection of more and more trainee data is being mandated by accrediting bodies such as the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education and the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada. However, few efforts have been made to synthesize the literature around the current issues surrounding workplace-based assessment (WBA) data. This scoping review seeks to synthesize the landscape of literature on the topic of data collection and utilization for trainees' WBAs in emergency medicine (EM).

METHODS

The authors conducted a scoping review in the style of Arksey and O'Malley, seeking to synthesize and map literature on collecting, aggregating, and reporting WBA data. The authors extracted, mapped, and synthesized literature that describes, supports, and substantiates effective data collection and utilization in the context of the CBME movement within EM.

RESULTS

Our literature search retrieved 189 potentially relevant references (after removing duplicates) that were screened to 29 abstracts and papers relevant to collecting, aggregating, and reporting WBAs. Our analysis shows that there is an increasing temporal trend toward contributions in these topics, with the majority of the papers (16/29) being published in the past 3 years alone.

CONCLUSION

There is increasing interest in the areas around data collection and utilization in the age of CBME. The field, however, is only beginning to emerge, leaving more work that can and should be done in this area.

A Short History of Free Open Access Medical Education. The Past, Present, and Future

Free Open Access Medical education (FOAM) has taken the emergency medicine and critical care worlds by storm in the past decade. This article represents one perspective on the stages of transition for FOAM from its humble beginnings as a grassroots movement to the more recent multiauthor blogs that are described in the peer-reviewed literature. In this article, the authors describe the following four distinct waves of people within the movement, with each wave creating a new stage in the evolution of the FOAM community: Creation by the Founders, Adoption by the Enthusiasts, Structure and Formalization by the Structuralists, and Engagement and Activity by the End Users. The authors contextualize some of the phenomena that have been observed within this field and highlight challenges for the field moving forward.

Clinical Improvement Interventions for Residents and Practicing Physicians: A Scoping Review of Coaching and Mentoring for Practice Improvement

BACKGROUND

Graduate medical education (GME) bodies are beginning to mandate coaching as an integral part of the learning process, in addition to current requirements for mentorship. Once an emergency medicine physician transitions beyond graduate training, there is no requirement and little focus on coaching as a method of improving or maintaining clinical practice. Our objective was to understand and describe the current state of the published literature with regard to the use of coaching and mentorship for both GME and practicing physicians.

METHODS

We conducted a structured review of the literature through PubMed and Google Scholar and included all articles applying coaching or mentorship modalities to GME trainees or practicing physicians. A Google Form was used for standardized data abstraction. Data were collected pertaining to the settings of intervention, the nature of the intervention, its effect, and its resource requirements.

RESULTS

A total of 3,546 papers were isolated during the literature review. After exclusion, 186 underwent full-text review by the authors of which 126 articles were included in the final data analysis. Eighty-two articles (65%) pertained to mentorship and 14 (11%) to coaching; the remainder of the articles discussed a combination or variation of these two concepts. Fifty-three (42%) articles were descriptive studies and 35 (28%) were narrative reviews or commentaries. Forty-seven (37%) articles originated from within surgical specialties and coaching was most commonly applied to procedural or manual skills with 22 (17%) instances among all studies.

CONCLUSIONS

Most literature on coaching and mentorship is descriptive or narrative, and few papers are in the specialty of emergency medicine. Most interventions are limited to single instances of coaching or mentorship without longitudinal application of the intervention. There is an important need to study and publish further evidence on coaching interventions.

Scholarship in Emergency Medicine: A Primer for Junior Academics Part I: Writing and Publishing

The landscape of scholarly writing, publishing, and university promotion can be complex and challenging. Mentorship may be limited. To be successful it is important to understand the key components of writing and publishing. In this article, we provide expert consensus recommendations on four key challenges faced by junior faculty: writing the paper; selecting contributors and the importance of authorship order; journal selection and indexing; and responding to critiques. After reviewing this paper, the reader should have an enhanced understanding of these challenges and strategies to successfully address them.