Must Reads

What is a ‘Must Read’ for those interested in medical education?

Each month, we identify 3-4 noteworthy articles from the health professions education literature and label them as “must reads.” Selection is based on several criteria including originality and methodological rigor. Our process includes a formal search of the peer-reviewed literature, screening titles and abstracts, full text review, and an editorial meeting to achieve consensus.

Who are we and why are we doing this?

Our reviewers include individuals with expertise in teaching, educational oversight, and research as well as those who are beginning their careers as educational scholars.

The volume of health professions education articles has become overwhelming. In curating some of the best new published papers, we hope to make it easier for all of us to keep abreast of cutting edge educational scholarship and practices.

We’d welcome involvement in the selection process. Reviewers can earn CME credit and contribute to Must Reads research. If you are interested in supporting this work or have perspectives to share, please email Sean Tackett: stacket1@jhmi.edu.

You can also follow @MedEdMustReads on X (aka Twitter) to be notified when new must read articles are selected and sign up to receive an email each month.

(Current Reviewers: Mohammad Aldalou, Syed Muhammad Ali, Paul Bain, Suni Ebby, Scott Kinkade, Anisha Kshetrapal, Liju Mathew, Amin Nakhostin-Ansari, Ashley Paul, Julianne Perretta, Katherine Senko, Sean Tackett, Scott Wright, Tony Zhu)

Featured This Month

The Gist

• Evaluation of inquiry-based learning (IBL) compared to team-based learning (TBL) across 2 cohorts of first year medical students in a physiology class.
• IBL was well-received and had greater recall of concepts than TBL.

Why This is a Must Read

Active learning is better than passive, but which methods are most appropriate depends on context. This article’s comparisons of IBL and TBL may help others design educational strategies.

The Gist

• Commentary on lessons learned from 13 teams of healthcare professionals and patients co-creating 16 curricula on pain and substance use disorders.
• Tips addressed the selection and recruitment of patient partners, partner training, collaborative goal setting, flexible working approaches, and equitable compensation.

Why This is a Must Read

The need to include patients as partners in medical education is understood, but reports of success are uncommon. This article’s recommendations based on extensive experience co-producing curricula can guide future partnerships.

The Gist

• Commentary describing “boundary work” – the negotiation of role boundaries – and how this has manifested in medicine over time.
• Recommends explicitly teaching about boundary work to prepare physicians to work collectively with each other and other healthcare workers.

Why This is a Must Read

The roles of physicians in healthcare systems and society are constantly changing. Understanding that physicians actively shape their roles can avoid setting rigid boundaries and promote flexible approaches in meeting the needs of patients and the public.

Featured

The Gist

• Interviews of 20 Hong Kong medical educators to understand how to improve resilience.
• Mapped 9 themes to Bronfenbrenner’s Process-Person-Context-Time framework, covering individual, relational, institutional, systemic, cultural, and temporal factors.

Why This is a Must Read

Medical education is filled with challenges. This study suggests ways to improve someone’s capacity to deal with adversity while decreasing the difficulties that must be overcome.

The Gist

• Interviews and focus groups with 18 senior residents from internal medicine, emergency medicine, and surgery exploring their approaches to teaching.
• Residents based their teaching methods on how they were taught, preferred to connect teaching with clinical care, and adapted their approaches with more experience.

Why This is a Must Read

Residents often have little time available for formal education on teaching methods. Insights from this article could align resident-as-teacher programs with residents’ current practices and improve their efficiency.

The Gist

• Quality improvement project to improve medicals student feedback response rates by using humorous digital memes.
• Rates improved from 32% to 85% after memes were introduced.

Why This is a Must Read

Student feedback is necessary for program improvement, but students may not prioritize it. This study illustrates a creative and simple approach to motivate responses to feedback requests.

The Gist

• Commentary on productive struggle as a way to develop adaptive expertise.
• Describes relevant concepts and provides examples contrasting productive with unproductive struggle in clinical learning.

Why This is a Must Read

Desirable difficulties make learning efficient. This article highlights how productive struggle – and failure – can better prepare learners for uncertain and complex clinical environments.

The Gist

• Analysis of 81 written narratives about personally challenging feedback encounters.
• Encounters were emotionally charged, and learners repeatedly reflected on feedback as they processed it.

Why This is a Must Read

Feedback often targets short term adjustments, but some feedback lingers with learners. This article illustrates that the impact of especially powerful feedback may not be known until years later.

The Gist

• Surveys and focus groups to evaluate an online, art museum-based continuing medical education program.
• Physicians enjoyed spending time with art and found it relevant to their clinical and educational skills.

Why This is a Must Read

Art is meant to change how people think and feel. This article adds to the growing evidence that art may be useful for medical learners at all levels.