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Background: Graduating medical students have reported concern regarding inadequate training in pharmacotherapy. Teaching by clinical pharmacists may improve medical students’ pharmacotherapy knowledge.Purpose: To assess the impact of pharmacist led workshops on 4th year medical students’ knowledge of pharmacotherapy and satisfaction.Methods: Senior medical students enrolled in intensive care unit rotations at a US medical school were randomized to an intervention of pharmacist led case-based workshops or a control group without an explicit pharmacotherapy curriculum. Intervention group students attended four weekly 1-hour workshops that covered topics in pharmacokinetics, pharmacodynamics, drug interactions and toxicity. A multiple-choice test of clinical vignettes assessed students’ knowledge of pharmacotherapy. An end of clerkship survey assessed student satisfaction with teaching.Results: Of 176 medical students eligible, 148 agreed to participate and were randomized to the intervention (n = 63) or control groups (n = 85). Student satisfaction with pharmacist led workshops was high. End of clerkship performance on clinical vignettes (minimum score 0, maximum 100) was similar between the groups (mean score 47 (SD = 12.2) for intervention vs 44 (SD = 13.0) for control group, p = 0.16). On end of clerkship survey, only 8% of control group students agreed or strongly agreed that the standard curriculum provided sufficient teaching in pharmacotherapy. The majority of students (82%) felt that pharmacotherapy should be taught formally in the clinical years.Conclusion: Pharmacist led workshops on pharmacotherapy were well received by senior medical students but did not improve performance on a test of pharmacotherapy knowledge. Further study is needed to define optimal strategies for improving medical students’ pharmacotherapy knowledge. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Background: Evidence-based medicine (EBM) is widely taught in residency, but evidence for effectiveness of EBM teaching on changing residents' behavior is limited.Objective: To investigate the impact of an EBM curriculum on residents' use of evidence-based resources in a simulated clinical experience.Design/participants: Fifty medicine residents randomized to an EBM teaching or control group.Measurements: A validated test of EBM knowledge (Fresno test) was administered before and after intervention. Post intervention, residents twice completed a Web-based, multiple-choice instrument (15 items) comprised of clinical vignettes, first without then with access to electronic resources. Use of electronic resources was tracked using ProxyPlus software. Within group pre-post differences and between group post-test differences were examined.Results: There was more improvement in EBM knowledge (100-point scale) for the intervention group compared to the control group (mean score increase 22 vs. 12, p = 0.012). In the simulated clinical experience, the most commonly accessed resources were Ovid (71% of residents accessed) and InfoPOEMs (62%) for the EBM group and UptoDate (67%) and MDConsult (58%) for the control group. Residents in the EBM group were more likely to use evidence-based resources than the control group. Performance on clinical vignettes was similar between the groups both at baseline (p = 0.19) and with access to information resources (p = 0.89).Conclusions: EBM teaching improved EBM knowledge and increased use of evidence-based resources by residents, but did not improve performance on Web-based clinical vignettes. Future studies will need to examine impact of EBM teaching on clinical outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Team-based learning is a large-group instructional modality intended to provide active learning with modest faculty resources. Purpose: The goal is to determine if team-based learning could be substituted for small-group learning in case sessions without compromising test performance or satisfaction. Methods: One hundred and sixty-seven students were assigned to team-based or small-group learning for 6 case discussion sessions. Examination scores and student satisfaction were compared. Results: Instruction modality had no meaningful effect on examination score, 81.7% team based versus 79.7% small-group, p= .56 after multivariate adjustment. Student satisfaction was lower with team-based learning, 2.45 versus 3.74 on a 5-point scale, p< .001. Survey responses suggested that the very small size (8-10 students) of our small groups influenced the preference for small-group learning. Conclusions: Team-based learning does not adversely affect examination performance. However, student satisfaction may be inferior, especially if compared to instruction in very small groups of 10 or fewer students. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An abstract of the article "Enlivening Journal Clubs Using a Modified Jigsaw Method" by Laura R. Willett et al. is presented.