IN BRIEF
Improving CME Lectures MARTYN 0. HOTVEDT
Med Teach Downloaded from informahealthcare.com by University of Newcastle on 01/07/15 For personal use only.
Martyn 0. Hotvedt, PH.D,is Director of the Academy of Continuing Medical Education, The University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston, USA.
In an effort to improve an annual continuing medical education course, a procedure was devised to enhance lecturcs, the principal educational device used each year. Thc course, Family Practice Review, is sponsored by the 0t'fic.e of Continuing Medical Education and the Department of Family Medicine within The University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston. It is a week-long intensive educational experience conducted by the members of various clinical departments within the medical school. The course is directed towards increasing the participants' knowledge of current development in medicine for use in patient care. It also provides the participants with a comprehensive syllabus to use as a reference in their professional practice. Most of the teaching was done in the form of lectures so it seemed reasonable to expect improvements in the quality of the course if these could bt. improved. The problem, then, was to develop a procedure to improve the lectures. In reviewing what had been done the previous year, the investigator interviewed the coordinator of the course and examined the syllabus. From this, two deficiencies became apparent. First, it was clear that the previous year's syllabus lacked structure and uniformity. The second deficiency involved time constraints, specifically the difficulty in persuading speakers to develop the syllabus material and deliver it to the Office of Continuing Medical Education in time to have it duplicated and distributed in the syllabus notebooks. One approach to improving the course seemed to lie in ameliorating these deficiences. Help i n Developing Syllabus Materials The procedure that was devised involved personal meetings with the lecturers. The investigator met with every faculty member responsible for producing a lecture and offered assistance from the Office of Continuing Medical Education in developing the lectures and in the use of audiovisual material. In addition, written guidelines for improving lectures were distributed and discussed briefly. These guidelines were listed on a one-page handout. Basically, the suggested guidelines are summarized as follows:
Medical Teacher Vol 6 No 2 1984
0 A set of specific learning objectives for the lecture. 0 An outline of the lecture spaced in a manner that allowed that participant to take notes between the headings if so desired. 0 A short self-test based on the learning objectives (the self-test to be distributed after the presentation).
The handout also described how these educational tools could be developed. Many faculty members were grateful for help in structuring their lectures but not one of the 47 actually requested assistance from the Office of Continuing Medical Education to develop the syllabus materials; however, some did request support in developing audiovisual material. Results a n d Implications
As a consequence of this personal approach to lecturers and the dissemination of the handout on procedures for developing syllabus material, almost 90 per cent of the lecturers supplied structured syllabus material for the 1980 course in sufficient time for production and duplication. This compared with 70 per cent for the 1979 course-a marked improvement in both number and quality. Furthermore, evaluations made by the participants of the syllabus material and of the course in general were much more positive about the 1980 course than for the 1979 course. Clearly, it is not possible to generalize from our experience at the University of Texas. However, the lecturers seemed better able to plan and structure their lectures with the help of the personal communications and the handout. Hence, the course was improved, at least in the opinion of the participants. This type of intervention and assistance does seem to be a reasonable procedure in situations where the lecturers are not otherwise coordinated. O n the other hand, there is no guarantee that simply talking to the lecturers and presenting them with a structure with which to develop their lectures will automatically improve the latter. Ultimately, higher standards come about through the desire and the efforts of the lecturers to improve what they do. Given support, however, they are encouraged to make these efforts.
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Improving CME Lectures MARTYN 0. HOTVEDT
Med Teach Downloaded from informahealthcare.com by University of Newcastle on 01/07/15 For personal use only.
Martyn 0. Hotvedt, PH.D,is Director of the Academy of Continuing Medical Education, The University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston, USA.
In an effort to improve an annual continuing medical education course, a procedure was devised to enhance lecturcs, the principal educational device used each year. Thc course, Family Practice Review, is sponsored by the 0t'fic.e of Continuing Medical Education and the Department of Family Medicine within The University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston. It is a week-long intensive educational experience conducted by the members of various clinical departments within the medical school. The course is directed towards increasing the participants' knowledge of current development in medicine for use in patient care. It also provides the participants with a comprehensive syllabus to use as a reference in their professional practice. Most of the teaching was done in the form of lectures so it seemed reasonable to expect improvements in the quality of the course if these could bt. improved. The problem, then, was to develop a procedure to improve the lectures. In reviewing what had been done the previous year, the investigator interviewed the coordinator of the course and examined the syllabus. From this, two deficiencies became apparent. First, it was clear that the previous year's syllabus lacked structure and uniformity. The second deficiency involved time constraints, specifically the difficulty in persuading speakers to develop the syllabus material and deliver it to the Office of Continuing Medical Education in time to have it duplicated and distributed in the syllabus notebooks. One approach to improving the course seemed to lie in ameliorating these deficiences. Help i n Developing Syllabus Materials The procedure that was devised involved personal meetings with the lecturers. The investigator met with every faculty member responsible for producing a lecture and offered assistance from the Office of Continuing Medical Education in developing the lectures and in the use of audiovisual material. In addition, written guidelines for improving lectures were distributed and discussed briefly. These guidelines were listed on a one-page handout. Basically, the suggested guidelines are summarized as follows:
Medical Teacher Vol 6 No 2 1984
0 A set of specific learning objectives for the lecture. 0 An outline of the lecture spaced in a manner that allowed that participant to take notes between the headings if so desired. 0 A short self-test based on the learning objectives (the self-test to be distributed after the presentation).
The handout also described how these educational tools could be developed. Many faculty members were grateful for help in structuring their lectures but not one of the 47 actually requested assistance from the Office of Continuing Medical Education to develop the syllabus materials; however, some did request support in developing audiovisual material. Results a n d Implications
As a consequence of this personal approach to lecturers and the dissemination of the handout on procedures for developing syllabus material, almost 90 per cent of the lecturers supplied structured syllabus material for the 1980 course in sufficient time for production and duplication. This compared with 70 per cent for the 1979 course-a marked improvement in both number and quality. Furthermore, evaluations made by the participants of the syllabus material and of the course in general were much more positive about the 1980 course than for the 1979 course. Clearly, it is not possible to generalize from our experience at the University of Texas. However, the lecturers seemed better able to plan and structure their lectures with the help of the personal communications and the handout. Hence, the course was improved, at least in the opinion of the participants. This type of intervention and assistance does seem to be a reasonable procedure in situations where the lecturers are not otherwise coordinated. O n the other hand, there is no guarantee that simply talking to the lecturers and presenting them with a structure with which to develop their lectures will automatically improve the latter. Ultimately, higher standards come about through the desire and the efforts of the lecturers to improve what they do. Given support, however, they are encouraged to make these efforts.
69
