Search

When our school organized the curriculum around a core set of medical student competencies in 2004, it was clear that more numerous and more varied student assessments were needed. To oversee a systematic approach to the assessment of medical student competencies, the Office of College-wide Assessment was established, led by the Associate Dean of College-wide Assessment. The mission of the Office is to 'facilitate the development of a seamless assessment system that drives a nimble, competency-based curriculum across the spectrum of our educational enterprise.' The Associate Dean coordinates educational initiatives, developing partnerships to solve common problems, and enhancing synergy within the College. The Office also works to establish data collection and feedback loops to guide rational intervention and continuous curricular improvement. Aside from feedback, implementing a systems approach to assessment provides a means for identifying performance gaps, promotes continuity from undergraduate medical education to practice, and offers a rationale for some assessments to be located outside of courses and clerkships. Assessment system design, data analysis, and feedback require leadership, a cooperative faculty team with medical education expertise, and institutional support. The guiding principle is 'Better Data for Teachers, Better Data for Learners, Better Patient Care.' Better data empowers faculty to become change agents, learners to create evidence-based improvement plans and increases accountability to our most important stakeholders, our patients.

As the definition of scholarship is clarified, each specialty should develop a cadre of medical education researchers who can design, test, and optimize educational interventions. In 2004, the Association for American Medical Colleges' Group on Educational Affairs developed the Medical Education Research Certificate (MERC) program to provide a curriculum to help medical educators acquire or enhance skills in medical education research, to promote effective collaboration with seasoned researchers, and to create better consumers of medical education scholarship. MERC courses are offered to individuals during educational meetings. Educational leaders in emergency medicine (EM) identified a disparity between the "scholarship of teaching" and medical education research skills, and they collaborated with the MERC steering committee to develop a mentored faculty development program in medical education research. A planning committee comprising experienced medical education researchers who are also board-certified, full-time EM faculty members designed a novel approach to the MERC curriculum: a mentored team approach to learning, grounded in collaborative medical education research projects. The planning committee identified areas of research interest among participants and formed working groups to collaborate on research projects during standard MERC workshops. Rather than focusing on individual questions during the course, each mentored group identified a single study hypothesis. After completing the first three workshops, group members worked under their mentors' guidance on their multiinstitutional research projects. The expected benefits of this approach to MERC include establishing a research community network, creating projects whose enrollments offer a multiinstitutional dimension, and developing a cadre of trained education researchers in EM.

Medical educators are increasingly charged with the development of outcomes-based "best practices" in medical student and resident education and patient care. To fulfill this mission, a cadre of well-trained, experienced medical education researchers is required. The experienced medical educator is in a prime position to fill this need but often lacks the training needed to successfully contribute to such a goal. Towards this end, the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) Group on Educational Affairs developed a series of content-based workshops that have resulted in Medical Education Research Certification (MERC), promoting skills development and a better understanding of research by educators. Subsequently, the Council of Emergency Medicine Residency Directors (CORD) partnered with the AAMC to take MERC a step further, in the MERC at CORD Scholars Program (MCSP). This venture integrates a novel, mentored, specialty-specific research project with the traditional MERC workshops. Collaborative groups, based on a common area of interest, each develop a multi-institutional project by exploring and applying the concepts learned through the MERC workshops. Participants in the inaugural MCSP have completed three MERC workshops and initiated a project. Upon program completion, each will have completed MERC certification (six workshops) and gained experience as a contributing author on a mentored education research project. Not only does this program serve as a multi-dimensional faculty development opportunity, it is also intended to act as a catalyst in developing a network of education scholars and infrastructure for educational research within the specialty of emergency medicine., ((c) 2009 by the Society for Academic Emergency Medicine.)

Background: This paper describes a pilot survey of faculty involved in medical education. The questionnaire focuses on their understanding of IRB policies at their institution, specifically in relation to the use of student assessment and curriculum evaluation information for scholarship., Methods: An anonymous survey was distributed to medical educators in a variety of venues. Two brief scenarios of typical student assessment or curriculum evaluation activities were presented and respondents were asked to indicate their likely course of action related to IRB approval. The questionnaire also asked respondents about their knowledge of institutional policies related to IRB approval., Results: A total of 121 completed surveys were obtained; 59 (50%) respondents identified themselves as from community-based medical schools. For the first scenario, 78 respondents (66%) would have contact with the IRB; this increased to 97 respondents (82%) for the second scenario. For both scenarios, contact with the IRB was less likely among respondents from research-intensive institutions. Sixty respondents (55%) were unsure if their institutions had policies addressing evaluation data used for scholarship. Fifty respondents (41%) indicated no prior discussions at their institutions regarding IRB requirements., Conclusion: Many faculty members are unaware of IRB policies at their medical schools related to the use of medical student information. To the extent that policies are in place, they are highly variable across schools suggesting little standardization in faculty understanding and/or institutional implementation. Principles to guide faculty decision-making are provided.