The number of students applying to medical schools is shrinking after rising steadily during the 1990s. The decline is the latest turn in the behavior of the applicant pool, which historically has gone through many cycles. Although government policies have strongly influenced the past behavior of the applicant pool, the ...

OBJECTIVES: The aim of this study was to determine how the medical performance of physicians during consultations is related to doctor-patient communication and satisfaction of patients, taking into account the actual length of the consultations. In addition, we studied the validity of the 'efficiency-per-time score' as a measure of competence. ...

Complex societal issues affect medical education and thus require new approaches from medical school admission officers. One of these issues--the recognition that the attributes of good doctors include character qualities such as compassion, altruism, respect, and integrity--has resulted in the recent focus on the greater use of qualitative variables, such ...

OBJECTIVE: The main objective of this study was to examine the admission grades in Senior School Certificate Examinations (SSCE) and Joint Admission Matriculation Board (JAMB) Examinations in relation to their performance at the pre-clinical class, at the University of Ibadan medical school. A descriptive, cross sectional study was carried out ...

OBJECTIVES: To report the use of OSCEs for both formative and summative purposes within a general practice undergraduate clinical attachment and to compare student performance in the departmental OSCEs with that of their final medical school examinations. METHODS: Twenty-eight students rotated through the attachment and undertook pre- and post-attachment OSCEs ...

OBJECTIVE: To assess the predictive validity of the secondary school certificate (SSC), higher secondary certificate (HSC) and IBA admission test for academic performance of MBBS students at KMDC. METHODOLOGY: Data based study using the results of first four batches of KMDC, which graduated in 1997, 1998, 1999 and 2000. Data ...

PURPOSE: To examine the pool of applicants to U.S. medical schools from 1974--1999 for changes in size and demographics and to identify factors that may be associated with such changes. METHOD: Data on characteristics of the total applicant pools to U.S. medical schools for 1974--1999 were collected from the Association ...

OBJECTIVE: To describe the educational and administrative structure and content of internal medicine subinternship (SI) programs at medical schools throughout the United States. DESIGN: A cross-sectional mailed survey of internal medicine SI directors at U.S. medical schools. MAIN RESULTS: Responses were received from 100 (80%) of 125 eligible programs. Seventy-five ...

The paper reports comparative data from a Nigerian undergraduate medical school and a Nepalese health professions institution in order to explore the value of the previously reported Dundee Ready Education Environment Measure (DREEM) in 'diagnosing' the environment and climate of particular institutions and making comparative analyses in two culturally diverse ...

CONTEXT: Tuberculosis is one of the most common infectious diseases worldwide and is responsible for the largest number of deaths from a single infectious cause. OBJECTIVE: The objective of this study was to compare the knowledge of and practices regarding tuberculosis in final-year medical students at schools from endemic and ...

The authors evaluated construct validity of scores for the Comprehensive Osteopathic Medical Licensing Examination (COMLEX-USA), the examination used to evaluate osteopathic physicians for licensure. They computed correlations between students' grades in the first 2 years of osteopathic medical school and their scores on the COMPLEX-USA Level 1 (N = 187) ...

Women are persistently underrepresented in the higher levels of academic administration despite the fact that they have been entering the medical profession in increasing numbers for at least 20 years and now make up a large proportion of the medical student body and fill a similar proportion of entry level ...

INTRODUCTION: Performance in an admission test and carefully conducted, structured interview provides a uniform basis for the assessment of applicants prepared in different systems of education for admission to an institute of higher professional learning. We studied the predictability of the system of education followed by the students prior to ...

A dramatic shift in the postgraduate career choices of medical school graduates toward primary care occurred during the mid-1990s. While some attributed this shift to changes in medical school curricula, perceptions stemming from marketplace reforms were probably responsible. For the most part, these perceptions were probably generated through informal communications ...

The mission of medical schools underwent significant change in the post-Second World War period, which resulted in a de-evaluation of teaching, which in turn impacted on the type of assessment methods that emerged in the latter part of the twentieth century. Assessment based on direct observation did not receive the ...

At the University of the West Indies, Cave Hill campus, the Freedman and Bernstein musculoskeletal competency examination was administered to 22 medical students during the last month of their final year. Eighty-two per cent (82%) of the students failed to score above the passing score of 73.1%. Nineteen of the ...

The present study examined the relationship between self-report scores of neurotic perfectionism and of perceived stress and self-esteem 6 wk. later among 146 Japanese male college students. Hierarchical regression analysis indicated that scores for neurotic perfectionism accounted for statistically significant but functionally small variance (4% and 3%) in scores for ...

PURPOSE: Despite their widespread use, medical school admission interviews often are unstructured and lack reliability. This report describes the development of a structured admission interview designed to eliminate bias and provide valid information for selecting medical students, with preliminary information about the interview's reliability and validity. METHOD: After screening applications, ...

AIM: To assess whether there is any advantage to be gained with respect to performance in the first year of postgraduate medical training (internship) by selecting medical school candidates with different educational backgrounds. Specifically, we were interested in comparing the performance ratings of interns who entered medical school with secondary ...

BACKGROUND: In medical education, examinations must assess a logical progression toward problem-solving skills. Differences in cognitive development between underrepresented minority students (URMs) and non-URMs may affect examination performance and subsequent attrition rates. PURPOSE: The authors investigated URM and non-URM performances by retrospectively analyzing success rates on exam items of differing ...

BACKGROUND: Faced with the challenge to develop models of assessment relevant to work of physicians, medical schools have broadened their assessment of medical student competency. PURPOSE: U.S. medical schools were surveyed to determine the extent to which student assessments have broadened beyond multiple-choice question (MCQ) examinations and preceptor ratings. METHODS: ...

BACKGROUND: Although the relations among prematriculation, matriculation, and residency assessments have been studied, measures pertaining to clinical skills have rarely been incorporated in any analyses. PURPOSE: The purpose of this article was to investigate the relations between scores obtained on the Educational Commission for Foreign Medical Graduates Clinical Skills Assessment ...

Ethnicity has been a continuing concern for the valid assessment of clinical performance with standardized patients (SPs). The concern is that examinee ethnicity and SP ethnicity might interact, such that examinees might score higher in encounters with SPs of the same ethnicity. To test for an interaction of examinee ethnicity ...

OBJECTIVE: To report the ethical development of medical students across four years of education at one medical school. DESIGN AND SETTING: A questionnaire was distributed to all four classes at the Wake Forest University School of Medicine during the Spring of 1996. PARTICIPANTS: Three hundred and three students provided demographic ...

Unlike in the USA and many other countries, the discipline of infectious diseases is not established as a specialty or a subspecialty in Germany. In order to assess the impact of this structural difference, the knowledge of clinical infectious diseases was compared among 64 German and 82 American physicians and ...

BACKGROUND: In this pilot study, we have investigated the frequency of adverse drug reaction (ADR)-related admissions to an acute medical assessment unit. Although ADRs are thought to be responsible for 5% of hospital admissions, there have been no recent studies in the U.K. OBJECTIVE: To pilot such a study for ...

There are few technological advancements that have had as much impact on the dissemination of information as the Internet, and especially the worldwide web. It is not surprising then that this tool is also changing the way medicine is studied, taught and practiced today. This impressive infrastructure enables us to ...

CONTEXT: Although concerns continue to be raised about the diversity of the US physician workforce, there has never been a nationwide survey of both the sex and underrepresented minority (URM) composition of medical school admission committees. OBJECTIVE: To document US medical school admission committee membership in several demographic domains, including ...

We used data from the 1999-2000 Liaison Committee on Medical Education Annual Medical School Questionnaire, which had a 100% response rate, and other sources to describe the status of medical education programs in the United States. In 1999-2000, the number of full-time faculty members was 102,446, a 4.3% increase from ...

All fifty-two pioneer medical students in a new medical school (The College of Medicine of Lagos State University), participated in a cross sectional survey to identify their socio-demographic profile and career intentions. A self-administered structured questionnaire was used to collect data. The students were observed to be mature. Their mean ...

OBJECTIVE: A statewide school survey was performed to provide naturalistic data on the prevalence of medication administered to Maryland public school students for the treatment of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) to clarify the concern of some state legislators about stimulant treatment for youths. METHODS: In April 1998, school nurses ...

AIM: To explore ethnic and gender variations amongst applicants to undergraduate United Kingdom medical and dental schools. METHOD: Retrospective analyses of University and College Admissions Services (UCAS) data on all students applying to study pre-clinical medicine and dentistry, during the academic years 1994/5, 1995/6 and 1996/7. Information for each medical ...

The authors first review the national debate about affirmative action programs, examine the results of these programs in higher education, and present data from 1995 through 1999 for minority enrollment in U.S., California, and Texas medical schools. Population projections for the state of Texas indicate a national trend that minority ...

Medical schools' affirmative action policies traditionally focus on race and give relatively little consideration to applicants' socioeconomic status or "social class." However, recent challenges to affirmative action have raised the prospect of using social class, instead of race, as the basis for preferential admissions decisions in an effort to maintain ...

PURPOSE: The authors evaluated the ability of a two-step admission process to predict clinical performance and patients' satisfaction on a third-year objective structured clinical examination (OSCE). METHOD: Subjects were three matriculating classes (1993, 1994, 1995) at one medical school. Data for the classes were analyzed separately. Independent variables were the ...

This study was designed to investigate gender differences in the USA, in anticipated professional income. Participants were 5314 medical students (3880 men, 1434 women) who entered Jefferson Medical College between 1970 and 1997. The annual peak professional income estimated at the beginning of medical school was the dependent variable and ...

BACKGROUND OBJECTIVES: An increasing sector of the American population is seeking health services from alternative practitioners and using alternative therapies. This study investigated whether medical students perceived that information on alternative therapies would be useful to them as future practicing physicians. A one-page anonymous questionnaire was distributed to the entire ...

OBJECTIVES: To test the hypothesis that a significant cause of rising medical admissions over the Christmas and New Year period is the failure of social and medical systems which support patients at home for most of the year; and to understand the reasons for admission during the winter months of ...

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES: Medical schools have been encouraged to increase the number of primary care graduates. This study determined the proportion of medical students who change specialty preference during the clinical years and explored how ultimate choice is affected by perceptions of medical specialties acquired during this period. METHODS: A ...

In this article career preferences of medical specialists in the Netherlands are analysed, based on a survey among the members of medical associations of five specialties. Four different career preferences were offered, each of which implied a possible variation in working hours. A questionnaire was sent to a random selected ...

In 1998, the authors, acting on behalf of the National Board of Medical Examiners (NBME), undertook a review of the scoring policy for the United States Medical Licensing Examination (USMLE). The main goal was to determine the likely effect of changing from numeric score reporting to reporting pass-fail status. Several ...

This 1996 study examined the admission interview employed at the University of Waterloo School of Optometry (UWSO). A questionnaire was developed, piloted, and mailed to 157 UWSO applicants and 23 UWSO interviewers. Their expectations of an ideal optometry admission interview were compared with their experiences of the UWSO admission interview. ...

The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship of performance on the Comprehensive Osteopathic Medical Licensing Examination (COMLEX-USA) Level 1 licensing examination to (1) academic performance during the first 2 years of the curriculum, and (2) preadmission grade point averages (GPAs) and Medical College Admission Test (MCAT) scores ...

The present study examined the underlying structure of the College Adjustment Scales via principal components analysis. A correlation matrix of the nine subscales showed significant multicolinearity. A subsequent principal components analysis demonstrated that one factor accounted for 57% of the total variance and that the majority of subscales were moderately ...

PURPOSE: Despite efforts to increase the numbers of underrepresented minorities (URMs), only 3.9% of medical school faculty are URMs. The authors compared the specialty choices, compensation, and career satisfaction of minority faculty with those of their majority counterparts to determine whether there were differences that might affect the recruitment and ...

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES: This study examined attitudes of medical students at a private Catholic medical school toward religion in medical education and practice and the relationship of these attitudes to medical student religiosity. METHODS: Surveys were mailed to first- and second-year medical students at Saint Louis University. The survey concerned ...

OBJECTIVE: To assess the feasibility of anonymous shortlisting of applications for medical school and its effect on those with non-European names. DESIGN: Prospective cohort study. SETTING: Leeds school of medicine, United Kingdom. SUBJECTS: 2047 applications for 1998 entry from the United Kingdom and the European Union. INTERVENTION: Deletion of all ...

The purpose of this study is to examine the relationship of a rural clerkship to medical students' interest in establishing careers in rural communities. The Association of American Medical Colleges Medical School Graduation Questionnaire (GQ) for years 1988 through 1997 was examined to compare the career plans of students graduating ...

OBJECTIVE: To compare medical student performance on the obstetrics and gynecology national board subject examination during two different clerkship rotation formats. METHODS: We compared medical student performance on the National Board of Medical Examiners (NBME) subject examination in obstetrics and gynecology for 2 years before and 2 years after the ...

BACKGROUND: There has been a discussion among medical educators concerning grade inflation; however, little has been written about it in the medical education literature. PURPOSE: A survey was developed to determine if grade inflation exists by gathering data about grading practices and by gathering the opinions of course directors from ...