The FIRST Trial: Patient Outcomes vs. Work/Life Balance

This month’s journal club was written by Andrew Rogers, MS4 looking at the advanced online publication of the article: National Cluster-Randomized Trial of Duty-Hour Flexibility in Surgical Training by Bilimoria KY, Chung JW, Hedges LV, et al with a follow up perspective that can be found here.

The ACGME duty hour regulations have been a hotly debated issue since their implementation. Originally employed over concerns for patient safety there has been little direct evidence on improvement in patient outcomes. However, recently there has been an increase in focus on resident job satisfaction and the prevention of burnout. While the FIRST Trial does not report a significant difference in patient outcomes, should we prioritize and establish a work/life balance for residency?

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Prevalence of Resident Depression

This month’s journal club was written by Peter Bates,MD.  The December issue of JAMA featured several articles on Medical Education. The article Prevalence of Depression and Depressive Symptoms Among Resident Physicians A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis by Douglas A. Mata, MD, MPH; Marco A. Ramos, MPhil, MSEd; Narinder Bansal, PhD; Rida Khan, BS; Constance Guille, MD, MS; Emanuele Di Angelantonio, MD, PhD; Srijan Sen, MD, PhD with a complimenting editorial, Resident Depression, The Tip of a Graduate Medical Education Iceberg Thomas L. Schwenk, MD.

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Mastery Learning

This month’s journal club, written by Denham Ward, MD, PhD, is a little different – only one page! The November issue of Academic Medicine featured several articles on Mastery Learning. The last page in Academic Medicine (called creatively, “AM Last Page”) is Mastery Learning With Deliberate Practice in Medical Education by William C. McGaghie, PhD, professor of medical education, Jeffrey H. Barsuk, MD, MS, associate professor of medicine, and Diane B. Wayne, MD, vice dean of education and professor of medicine, Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine.

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Welcome to the on-line journal club for the Institute of Teaching Excellence

We will be selecting one article a month to highlight relevant medical education literature, with an emphasis on articles that contain useful tools and those that practice high levels of evidence based medical education. We encourage thoughtful comments on the blog and welcome suggestions for interesting and relevant articles.

Internal Medicine Residents’ Perspectives on Receiving Feedback in Milestone Format

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