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Abstract Background The extent to which medical residents are involved in the teaching and supervision of medical procedures is unknown. This study aims to evaluate the teaching and supervision of junior residents in central venous catheterization (CVC) by resident-teachers. Methods All PGY-1 internal medicine residents at two Canadian academic institutions were invited to complete a survey on their CVC experience, teaching, and supervision prior to their enrolment in a simulator CVC training curriculum. Results Of the 69 eligible PGY-1 residents, 32 (46%) consenting participants were included in the study. There were no significant baseline differences between participants from the two institutions in terms of sex, number of ICU months completed, previous CVC training received, number of CVCs observed and performed. Only 16 participants (50%) received any CVC training at baseline. Of those who received any training, 63% were taught only by senior resident-teachers. A total of 81 CVCs were placed by 17 participants. Thirty-two CVCs (45%) were supervised by resident-teachers. Conclusions Resident-teachers play a significant role both in the teaching and supervision of CVCs placed by junior residents. Educational efforts should focus on preparing residents for their role in teaching and supervision of procedures.

The article presents recommendations on the screening of hepatitis C virus (HCV) for adults in Canada. Topics included the effectiveness of HCV screening in adults, the high resource consumption levels of the Canadian Task Force on Preventive Health Care against HCV infection screening, and the history of injection drug use.

The article presents the Canadian Task Force on Preventive Health Care's recommendations on lung cancer screening. Topics discussed include the development of the recommendations on lung cancer screening, the benefit of the screening to patients with lung cancer, and the necessity for physicians to talk with their patients on the harms and benefits of the screening.

In ambulatory care settings, patients with limited English proficiency receive lower quality of care. Limited information is available describing outcomes for inpatients. To investigate the effect of English proficiency on length of stay (LOS) and in-hospital mortality. Retrospective analysis of administrative data at 3 tertiary care teaching hospitals (University Health Network) in Toronto, Canada. Consecutive inpatient admissions from April 1993 to December 1999 were analyzed for LOS differences first by looking at 23 medical and surgical conditions (59,547 records) and then by a meta-analysis of 220 case mix groups (189,119 records). We performed a similar analysis for in-hospital mortality. LOS and odds of in-hospital death for limited English-proficient (LEP) patients relative to English-proficient (EP) patients. LEP patients stayed in hospital longer for 7 of 23 conditions (unstable coronary syndromes and chest pain, coronary artery bypass grafting, stroke, craniotomy procedures, diabetes mellitus, major intestinal and rectal procedures, and elective hip replacement), with LOS differences ranging from approximately 0.7 to 4.3 days. A meta-analysis using all admission data demonstrated that LEP patients stayed 6% (approximately 0.5 days) longer overall than EP patients (95% confidence interval, 0.04 to 0.07). LEP patients were not at increased risk of in-hospital death (relative odds, 1.0; 95% confidence interval, 0.9 to 1.1). Patients with limited English proficiency have longer hospital stays for some medical and surgical conditions. Limited English proficiency does not affect in-hospital mortality. The effect of communication barriers on outcomes of care in the inpatient setting requires further exploration, particularly for selected conditions in which length of stay is significantly prolonged. J GEN INTERN MED 2004;19:221–228. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: It aimed to know the performance of the Ebel standard-setting method in in spring 2019 Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada internal medicine certification examination consisted of multiple-choice questions. Specifically followings were searched: the inter-rater agreement; the correlation between Ebel scores and item facility indices; raters' knowledge of correct answers' impact on the Ebel score; and affection of rater's specialty on theinter-rater agreement and Ebel scores., Methods: Data were drawn from a Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada certification exam. Ebel's method was applied to 203 MCQs by 49 raters. Facility indices came from 194 candidates. We computed Fleiss' kappa and the Pearson correlation between Ebel scores and item facility indices. We investigated differences in the Ebel score (correct answers provided or not) and differences between internists and other specialists with t-tests., Results: Kappa was below 0.15 for facility and relevance. The correlation between Ebel scores and facility indices was low when correct answers were provided and negligible when they were not. The Ebel score was the same, whether the correct answers were provided or not. Inter-rater agreement and Ebel scores was not differentbetween internists and other specialists., Conclusion: Inter-rater agreement and correlations between item Ebel scores and facility indices wee consistently low; furthermore, raters' knowledge of correct answer and rater specialty had no effect on Ebel scores in the present setting.

Introduction: Objective outcome measures for use with simulator-based assessments of cardiac physical examination competence are lacking. The current study describes the development and validation of an approach to scoring performance using a cardiac findings checklist., Methods: A cardiac findings checklist was developed and implemented for use with a simulator-based assessment of cardiac physical examination competence at a Canadian national specialty examination in internal medicine. Candidate performance as measured using the checklist was compared with global ratings of clinical performance on the cardiac patient simulator and with overall examination performance., Results: Interrater reliability for scoring the checklist ranged from 0.95 for scoring correct findings to 0.72 for scoring incorrect findings. A summary checklist score had a Pearson correlation of 0.60 with overall candidate performance on the simulator-based station., Conclusion: Use of a cardiac findings checklist provides one objective measure of cardiac physical examination competence that may be used with simulator-based assessments.