Utilizing Design Thinking for Effective Multidisciplinary Diabetes Management.

(1) Background: Design thinking, as a human-centered design method, represents a unique framework to support the planning, testing, and evaluation of new clinical spaces for diabetic care throughout all phases of construction. This approach prioritizes the needs and experiences of diabetic patients to create innovative and effective healthcare environments. By applying design-thinking principles, healthcare facilities can optimize the design and functionality of their clinical spaces, ensuring a patient-centered approach to diabetic care. This holistic and personalized approach can ultimately enhance the overall quality of diabetic care provided to patients. (2) Methods: The study used the action research method and progressively explored diabetes patients' needs and preferences for care, subsequently developing creative solutions to achieve the goals. There were six doctors, seven nursing staffs, four case managers and three family members who participated in the design-thinking workshop. (3) Results: The participating trainees in this study developed unique and innovative solutions during the iterative process of "divergent thinking" and "focused thinking", including diabetes dietary guidelines for food ordering and delivery platforms, and the design of accompanying health-education picture books to enable patients to learn the care process and precautions before, during, and after discharge. (4) Conclusions: This continuing education model promoted sharing among participants, improved collaboration and mutual learning, and increased motivation through goal setting.

Teaching communication skills: Using Gagne's model as an illustration.

Communication skills is an essential competence for physicians. Good communication skills correlate with higher patient satisfaction and overall patient outcome. Therefore, such training should start as early as in the undergraduate curriculum with experiential methods and more advanced skills to be integrated at different levels. Design of the training program should prepare for the transfer of communication skills into the clinical setting. Supervision from clinician educators could enhance the transfer of communication skills. Faculty development programs could help clinician educators to develop teaching skills needed in teaching communication. Continuous feedback from teachers and reflective practice of the learners are essential for effective learning of communication skills. The design of the teaching should be based on theory such as adult learning theory or experiential learning. Gagne's model provides a template for the systemic design of instructional events, and this article will illustrate an example of teaching communication skills based on the model.

An objective structured teaching exercise for faculty training and assessment of teaching ability in interprofessional collaborative practice and education.

OBJECTIVE: Improving clinical teachers' ability to teach interprofessional collaborative practice warrants development in current faculty training programs; in particular, current education training emphasizes experiential learning and multiple teaching strategies. The purpose of this study was to establish a teaching model to apply interdisciplinary collaborative care and to improve clinical teachers' execution of interprofessional practices. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Health-care faculty members were studied; this study assessed a teacher education curriculum for interprofessional education (IPE) and applied an objective structured teaching exercise (OSTE) to evaluate IPE execution by clinical teachers. RESULTS: The OSTE improved clinical teachers' IPE execution, verifying the necessity for multistrategy teaching in faculty training programs. CONCLUSIONS: This study provides different types of interprofessional faculty training and assessments. Development of an OSTE requires long-term planning, and IPE should also be incorporated into formal programs.

Promoting innovation in the objective structured teaching examination and feedback: clustering teachers to aid teaching evaluation.

PROBLEM: This study used the principles of feedback in a faculty development curriculum to enable clinical teachers to conduct objective structured teaching exercises for performance assessment. INTERVENTION: the Flanders System of Interaction Analysis (FIA) was given to analysis of the data collected from a particular situation, to videotapes of simulated clinical teaching skills. CONTEXT: The Sparse K-Means clustering method, one-way ANOVA and post hoc tests were employed to cluster the most commonly used skills by teachers and compare the features of different clusters were then discussed. OUTCOME: The evaluation method employed in this study can be extended to more teaching methods and skills. LESSONS LEARNED: that through teaching observation, clinical teaching skills and reflection teaching can be improved.

A competency-based approach to critical care education.

The medical education environment is rapidly changing. Competency-based medical education (CBME) is a great advance, but operationalizing competencies for teaching and assessment is problematic. Entrustable professional activities (EPAs) can revitalize CBME by connecting competencies to practice, creating flexibility in programs. CBME requires and deepens the nature of workplace-based assessments. It is important to use EPAs to verify residents' ability to care for critically ill patients unsupervised in simulation education.

Analyzing the effectiveness of teaching and factors in clinical decision-making.

OBJECTIVE: The aim of this study is to prepare junior physicians, clinical education should focus on the teaching of clinical decision-making. This research is designed to explore teaching of clinical decision-making and to analyze the benefits of an "Analogy guide clinical decision-making" as a learning intervention for junior doctors. MATERIALS AND METHODS: This study had a "quasi-experimental design" and was conducted in a medical center in eastern Taiwan. Participants and Program Description: Thirty junior doctors and three clinical teachers were involved in the study. The experimental group (15) received 1 h of instruction from the "Analogy guide for teaching clinical decision-making" every day for 3 months. Program Evaluation: A "Clinical decision-making self-evaluation form" was used as the assessment tool to evaluate participant learning efficiency before and after the teaching program. Semi-structured qualitative research interviews were also conducted. RESULTS: We found using the analogy guide for teaching clinical decision-making could help enhance junior doctors' self-confidence. Important factors influencing clinical decision-making included workload, decision-making, and past experience. CONCLUSION: Clinical teaching using the analogy guide for clinical decision-making may be a helpful tool for training and can contribute to a more comprehensive understanding of decision-making.

Faculty development program for general medicine in Taiwan: Past, present, and future.

General medical training programs are aimed at promoting competency in general practice skills with a holistic perspective of patient-centered medicine for the new generation of physicians. The faculty development program was implemented to promote learning and application of the six core competencies established by the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education. This article describes the implementation and outcome of the current faculty development program. Additional assessment tools of the faculty development program are recommended to evaluate different perspectives of outcome. Our experience suggests that OSTEs are a realistic and well-received approach for faculty development that merits further investigation. According to the clinical instructors' response, our faculty development program effectively increased familiarity with various teaching and assessment skills needed to teach PGY 1 residents and ACGME competencies, and these clinical instructors also then subsequently applied these skills.

Correlation between white blood cell count and metabolic syndrome in adolescence.

BACKGROUND: Metabolic syndrome (MetS) is associated with increased risk for diabetes and coronary heart disease. Data suggest that MetS starts even in children. Thus, it is important to understand the role of MetS and the risks related to it. Furthermore, white blood cell count (WBCC) is available in routine examination and it has been proved to be related to risks of MetS. METHODS: A total of 1657 subjects aged 14-19 years were enrolled, with normal WBCC (< or =10 x 10(9) cells/L). The subjects were divided into four quartiles according to WBCC (WBCC1-4, from the lowest to highest WBCC) in both genders. RESULTS: The female subjects had significantly lower systolic blood pressure, fasting plasma glucose (FPG), triglyceride (TG), body mass index (BMI) and higher high-density lipoprotein-cholesterol (HDL-C) than the male subjects. When comparing the risks of the quartiles of WBCC, WBCC4 had significant higher BMI than WBCC1 and WBCC2 in both genders; and lower HDL-C than WBCC3 in male subjects. On multiple regression WBCC was positively related with BMI and TG and negatively related to HDL-C in male subjects. In female subjects only BMI was positively correlated with WBCC. Subjects with MetS did not have significant higher WBCC than those without MetS. CONCLUSIONS: In adolescents with normal WBCC, BMI is significantly related to the levels of WBCC and is the earliest component of MetS to be noted in adolescents. Elevated TG and decreased HDL-C could also be important markers for future risk factors only in male subjects.