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The Lancet Commission on Education of Health Professionals for the 21st Century calls for enhancing health education for the needs and challenges of the 21st century to improve health status globally. To complement the Lancet report, this article makes recommendations for including core global health competencies in the education of health care professionals and specific groups of the public who are relevant to oral health in a global context in order to tackle the burden of oral diseases. Experts from various professional backgrounds developed global oral health competencies for four target groups: Group 1 was defined as dental students, residents/trainee specialists (or equivalent), and dentists; Group 2 was community health workers, dental hygienists, and dental therapists (or the equivalent); Group 3 was health professionals such as physicians, physician assistants, nurses, nurse practitioners, and pharmacists; and Group 4 was non-health professionals in the public arena such as parents, teachers, decision makers, key opinion leaders, and health and consumer advocates. Key competencies for members of each of the four target groups are presented in a matrix. The suggested competency matrix shows that many other health professions and groups in society have potentially crucial roles in the prevention, control, and management of oral diseases globally. Workforce models including a wider range of professionals working together as a team will be needed to tackle the burden of oral diseases in an integrated way in the broader context of non-communicable diseases. Further discussion and research should be conducted to validate or improve the competencies proposed here with regard to their relevance, appropriateness, and completeness. © American Dental Education Association

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Context: Competency-based education is a resurgent paradigm in professional medical education. However, more specific knowledge is needed about the learning process of such competencies, since they consist of complex skills. We chose to focus on the competency of skilled communication and want to further explore its learning process, since it is regarded as a main competency in medical education. Objective: This study aims to explore in more detail the learning process that residents in general practice go through during workplace-based learning in order to become skilled communicators. Methods: A qualitative study was conducted in which twelve GP residents were observed during their regular consultations, and were interviewed in-depth afterwards. Results: Analysis of the data resulted in the construction of five phases and two overall conditions to describe the development towards becoming a skilled communicator: Confrontation with (un)desired behaviour or clinical outcomes was the first phase. Becoming conscious of one's own behaviour and changing the underlying frame of reference formed the second phase. The third phase consisted of the search for alternative behaviour. In the fourth phase, personalization of the alternative behaviour had to occur, this was perceived as difficult and required much time. Finally, the fifth phase concerned full internalization of the new behaviour, which by then had become an integrated part of the residents' clinical repertoire. Safety and cognitive & emotional space were labelled as overall conditions influencing this learning process. Conclusions: Knowledge and awareness of these five phases can be used to adjust medical working and learning environments in such a way that development of skilled medical communication can come to full fruition and its benefits are more fully reaped. © 2015 van den Eertwegh et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

[No abstract available]

Background: This article describes the rationale and contents of an intervention program aimed at strengthening students' social relations in order to reduce dropout from vocational schools in Denmark. Taking its theoretical cue from the concept of 'social participation', a qualitative study was performed to investigate the specific relationships between the social environment within the schools and the institutional structures in order to analyse reasons for school dropout and their relation to well-being, cigarette smoking and substance use. Methods: The development study was based on ethnographic methods, including 22 qualitative interviews with students 17-19 years old and fieldwork with participant observations at four vocational schools over 40 days, including informal interviews and discussion meetings with managers, teachers, counselors and students. As part of the fieldwork, four additional qualitative interviews and four group interviews were conducted with students 16-25 years old. Results: The qualitative data collection resulted in seven major themes to be addressed in the intervention: social relations, sole focus on professional skills, institutionalized individualization, importance of the introduction period, physical surroundings and schedules, tobacco and cannabis use and communication about drug use. The program addressing these themes incorporates suggestions that are meant to improve how teachers welcome new students, to enable greater integration of social and educational activities and to enhance the capacity of teachers and counselors to deal with drug use problems among students. Conclusion: The development of new intervention programs might benefit from adopting a theoretical and methodological perspective that enables a closer exploration of the everyday social practices in which interventions are embedded. Thus, we aimed to create a comprehensive intervention that worked through organizational changes in everyday school practices. Intervention programs must be planned in dialogue and collaboration with practitioners in the field to ensure the pertinence and usability of the program. © 2015 Ingholt et al.; licensee BioMed Central.

Clinical educators (CEs) play a key role in student learning, yet their insights of student preparedness and performance during initial clinical placements are often under-recognised. AIM: To explore the experience of hospital-based CEs on the preparedness and performance of student dietitians on clinical placements to inform curriculum planning. METHODS: Eight semi-structured focus groups consisted of dietetic CEs (n=20) involved in the training of third-year students commencing their first clinical placement. Focus groups were conducted up to 2 months' post-placement completion and thematically analysed grounded in phenomenology. RESULTS: Six themes emerged: 1) role of professional skills, 2) clinical skills and knowledge, 3) anxiety and confidence, 4) unique needs of culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) students, 5) impact of student training on CEs, and 6) variation in expectations of student preparedness. CONCLUSIONS: CEs valued professional skills of students and they reported students exhibited a range of developed traits. Anxiety and knowledge gaps hindered placement progress, and CALD students were reported to provide particular challenges. Expectations of CEs, the university, and students are not always congruent, and there were similar variations between CEs themselves. The findings have been used to address these challenges and improve collaboration between university and clinical placements. © 2015 Association of Schools of Allied Health Professions, Wash., DC.

Because students' ability to use statistics, which is mathematical in nature, is one of the concerns of educators, embedding within an e-learning system the pedagogical characteristics of learning is 'value added' because it facilitates the conventional method of learning mathematics. Many researchers emphasize the effectiveness of cognitive apprenticeship in learning and problem solving in the workplace. In a cognitive apprenticeship learning model, skills are learned within a community of practitioners through observation of modelling and then practice plus coaching. This study utilized an internet-based Cognitive Apprenticeship Model (i-CAM) in three phases and evaluated its effectiveness for improving statistics problem-solving performance among postgraduate students. The results showed that, when compared to the conventional mathematics learning model, the i-CAM could significantly promote students' problem-solving performance at the end of each phase. In addition, the combination of the differences in students' test scores were considered to be statistically significant after controlling for the pre-test scores. The findings conveyed in this paper confirmed the considerable value of i-CAM in the improvement of statistics learning for non-specialized postgraduate students. © 2015 Saadati et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

Background: Australian community pharmacies are experiencing challenges, including government prescription pricing reform and a dramatically increasing competitive environment. Enacting appropriate responsive actions requires capable pharmacy managers. 'Capability' implies managing effectively in the present, but with unknown or emerging contexts and with new problems. A conceptual understanding of managerial capability as practiced by pharmacist owner-managers is unavailable in the literature. Objectives: This research aimed to address the question: How can we understand managerial capability in relation to effective community pharmacy management? The study's objective was to develop preliminary theoretical departure points for continuing research responding to the research question. Methods: The objective was approached by exploring how 5 top Australian pharmacy owner-managers accomplish the management of their businesses in a changing business environment. Qualitative research methods were employed to develop a social process perspective of how the managers enact their management practices. In-depth semi-structured life-world interviews were undertaken as the major method of data collection. Interview text thematic analysis was carried out identifying rich conceptual properties and dimensions, which 'dimensionalized' 3 key integrated categories. Results: The findings show how the managers are immersed in their business, managerial and personal practices in a holistic and relational manner. Managerial processes, reported through three conceptual categories, their properties and dimensions, reveal the highly situational nature of the reality the managers were experiencing, including their need to express their personal/professional identity. The properties and dimensions of the category 'learning generatively' in particular, reveal how the pharmacy owner-managers shape their business activities and their emerging context as time passes. Conclusions: The preliminary interpretive view of managerial capability describes the phenomenon as an emergent human accomplishment rather than a possessed ability. This social process perspective enables the inclusion of context with time. The study acts as a formative departure point for continuing research of pharmacist managerial capability which seeks to better understand the linkage between 'knowing' and 'doing'. © 2015 Elsevier Inc..

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to compare the differences in self-efficacy in clinical performance (SECP) between medical students and residents. Methods: A total of 267 medical students and 110 residents participated in a survey on SECP with regard to seven factors: Knowledge acquisition and application, clinical reasoning, clinical skills, communication with patients, relationships with other health professionals, medical ethics, and self-development. The data were examined by multivariate analysis of variance. Results: Residents had higher scores for clinical skills than students (F[1, 372]=8.919, p<0.01), whereas students scored significantly higher for communication with patients (F[1, 372]=26.779, p<0.001), relationships with other health professionals (F[1, 372]=12.807, p<0.001), medical ethics (F[1, 372]=40.136, p<0.001), and self-development (F[1, 372]=32.380, p<0.001). There were no differences between genders or specialties of residents. Conclusion: There are differences in SECP between students and residents. These results can guide the design of self-efficacy improvement programs. © 2021 Matrix Medical Communications. All rights reserved.

Education and training can improve the quality of health care. We evaluated a course taught by Obstetrics/Gynaecology residents on the work environment and maternal/neonatal outcomes at Orotta Maternity Hospital. Participants were given a Standardised Safety Attitudes Questionnaire (SAQ) to measure work environment before and after training. Maternal/neonatal outcomes were extracted from hospital logbooks. Neonatal quality indicators were: adverse score index, weighted score index and severity score index. SAQ response rate was 77.6% (45/58) pre-training and 95.6% (43/45) post-training. Mean total SAQ score increased from 3.07 to 3.32 out of 5 points (p < 0.05). Changes in relative risk (RR) were not statistically significant for maternal [maternal death ratio of RR (RRR) =1.08, 95% CI: 0.20−5.84 and blood transfusion RRR = 0.90, 95% CI: 0.74 –1.09] or neonatal outcomes (intrapartum death RRR = 1.24, 95% CI: 0.57–2.75, neonatal death RRR = 0.93, 95% CI: 0.26–3.24, neonatal transfer RRR = 1.02, 95% CI: 0.81–1.27, and Apgar < 7 at 5 minutes RRR = 1.20, 95% CI: 0.83−1.73). Neonatal quality indicators did not change significantly. Utilising residents to teach staff-developed training within a hospital setting was feasible and may improve the work environment. Impact on maternal/neonatal outcomes is not evident but continued follow-up is important. © 2015 Taylor & Francis.