Effectiveness of Labor Cervical Examination Simulation in Medical Student Education.

OBJECTIVE: To estimate whether simulation training improves medical students' cervical examination accuracy. BACKGROUND: The training paradigm for the labor cervical examination exposes patients to additional examinations, lacks a gold standard, and does not objectively assess trainee competence. To address these issues and optimize training, we assessed the effectiveness of cervical examination simulation in third-year medical students. METHODS: During the obstetrics and gynecology clerkship, a cohort study was performed in which third-year students were assigned to receive cervical examination simulation (n=50) or vaginal delivery simulation (n=48), with each group serving as a simulation-naive control for the other skill. As a final assessment, students performed 10 cervical examinations using task trainers. Exact accuracy and accuracy within 1 cm were compared between groups. Cumulative summation analyses were performed on the cervical examination group to assess competence and the average number of repetitions needed to achieve it. RESULTS: Cervical examination students were significantly more accurate (Mann-Whitney, P<.001) in assessing dilation (73% exact, 98% within 1 cm) and effacement (83% and 100%) than vaginal delivery students (dilation 52% and 82%, effacement 51% and 96%). In the cumulative summation analyses, 65-100% of students attained competence during the clerkship depending on the level of accuracy and cervical parameter assessed. On average, competence was achieved with 27-44 repetitions. CONCLUSION: Simulation training dramatically improved student accuracy in labor cervical examinations. Because not all students achieved competence, the cumulative summation analyses suggest that more than 100 repetitions would be needed if the goal was for the entire class of students to achieve competence. LEVEL OF EVIDENCE: II.

Cardioinhibitory syncope due to bloodphobia associated asystole.

Neurocardiogenic syncope is not an uncommon occurrence in the general population and affects people across a wide range of age groups. Several sub-specialties are involved in the management of this phenomenon and quite often a multidisciplinary approach is needed for arriving at the final diagnosis and deciding on the optimal treatment for this condition. Often, a thorough history and physical examination will aid in narrowing the differential of syncope and, in the right setting, both passive and provocative testing can be complementary. Neurocardiogenic syncope with a malignant course is a serious entity and usually needs prompt identification of its underlying etiology. It has been generally attributed to a severe cardioinhibitory or vasodepressor mechanism and most cases required tailored therapy. We describe a case which has many of the elements described above - a multidisciplinary approach, malignant neurocardiogenic syncope with profound asystole from a cardioinhibitory response, simplistic bed-side provocative testing, and tailored therapy.