["Practical clinical competence" - a joint programme to improve training in surgery].

Practical clinical competence is, as a result of the complexity of the required skills and the immediate consequences of their insufficient mastery, fundamentally important for undergraduate medical education. However, in the daily clinical routine, undergraduate training competes with patient care and experimental research, mostly to the disadvantage of the training of clinical skills and competencies. All students have to spend long periods in compulsory surgical training courses during their undergraduate studies. Thus, surgical undergraduate training is predestined to exemplarily develop, analyse and implement a training concept comprising defined learning objectives, elaborated teaching materials, analysed teaching methods, as well as objective and reliable assessment methods. The aim of this project is to improve and strengthen undergraduate training in practical clinical skills and competencies. The project is funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research with almost two million Euro as a joint research project of the medical faculties of the universities of Frankfurt/Main, Gießen and Marburg, in collaboration with the German Society of Surgery, the German Society of Medical Education and the German Medical Students' Association. Nine packages in three pillars are combined in order to improve undergraduate medical training on a methodical, didactic and curricular level in a nation-wide network. Each partner of this network provides a systematic contribution to the project based on individual experience and competence. Based on the learning objectives, which were defined by the working group "Education" of the German Society of Surgery, teaching contents will be analysed with respect to their quality and will be available for both teachers and students as mobile learning tool (first pillar). The existing surgical curricula at the cooperating medical faculties will be analysed and teaching methods as well as assessment methods for clinical skills will be evaluated regarding their methodological quality and evidence. The existing surgical curricula will be revised and adapted on the basis of these results (second pillar). Qualification programmes for physicians will be implemented in order to improve both undergraduate education and the attractiveness of educational research, the required teaching quality will be imparted in a nationwide "train-the-teacher" program for surgical clinical skills (third pillar).

Ruesseler M ，Schill A ，Stibane T ，Damanakis A ，Schleicher I ，Menzler S ，Braunbeck A ，Walcher F ... -  《-》

[Logbook of learning targets for special educational skills in orthopaedic and trauma surgery for undergraduate medical training].

The changes in medical licensing regulations introduced in Germany in 2012 require the development of specific catalogues, termed logbooks, that define the practical skills medical students should acquire in different specialties. In conjunction with another change in medical education, which allows medical students to freely select any German university hospital or academic teaching hospital for their one-year internship, these catalogues are a prerequisite for ensuring comparable training standards throughout Germany. The German licensing regulations provide no details regarding the contents or form of the logbooks but only mention a "training programme" in very general terms. A logbook is commonly understood to define clear learning objectives to be accomplished during a specified interval (4 months). The conference of German medical faculties proposed a basic logbook for compulsory training modules (surgery and internal medicine) that is intended to serve as a model (formally and contentwise) for those who develop similar catalogues for elective training modules. Here we present our logbook for an elective training module in orthopaedic surgery and traumatology. The logbook presented here is based on the catalogue of learning outcomes in orthopaedic surgery and traumatology developed by an expert board of the medical teaching study group of the German Society of Orthopaedic Surgery and Traumatology (DGOU) in 2011. The objectives defined for the one-year internship are of necessity divided into orthopaedic surgery and traumatology skills that must be acquired by all medical students and those that are optional (compulsory and elective modules). Using a set of predefined criteria, the authors developed the catalogue of learning outcomes (logbook) presented here. The catalogue outlines the competencies to be acquired in an elective orthopaedic surgery and traumatology module, leaving it to each medical faculty to work out the details. Where applicable, comprehensive skills across a number of (compulsory and elective modules) learning objectives are arranged in such a way that they can be taught at different levels of complexity. The logbook covers 15 skill domains from different specific components of orthopaedic surgery and traumatology. Where these skills overlap with those also required in compulsory modules (e.g., surgery), the required level of complexity may be lower for students in the elective module. The text is supplemented by figures with synopses of the major issues and summaries for easy reference. With the recent changes in German licensing regulations for physicians, it has become necessary to set up a logbook of uniform learning outcomes to assist medical students and their teachers alike. The authors have developed such a logbook of elective training modules in orthopaedic surgery and traumatology to be taught during the one-year undergraduate internship of German medical students.

Froehlich S ，Kasch R ，Schwanitz P ，Schulz AP ，Walcher F ，Mittelmeier W ，Obertacke U ... -  《-》

[Undergraduate teaching of anaesthesiology : a nationwide survey in Germany].

Hoffmann N ，Breuer G ，Schüttler J ，Goetz AE ，Schmidt GN ... -  《-》

Considerations for the development of an undergraduate curriculum in geriatric medicine.

Although the number of older patients is increasing in almost all medical specialties, the interest of medical students in geriatrics as a career is still low. Because quality of medical education and educators strongly influences student career decisions, it is important to develop curricula that motivate students to become self-directed, lifelong learners in the field of geriatric medicine. We evaluated training aspects in terms of time, core content of teaching goals, and quality of undergraduate geriatric education in medical schools in Austria and Germany. A standardized paper questionnaire was sent to all 36 German and 4 Austrian medical faculties to evaluate quantitative aspects, content, and quality of pregraduate medical education in geriatrics. Results were compared to the recommendations of the Geriatric Medicine Section of the European Union of Medical Specialists (UEMS). A total of 33/36 (92 of the German medical faculties) and 4/4 (100 of the Austrian medical faculties) responded to the questionnaire. In most of the faculties, geriatric medicine was taught as an independent discipline in the core curriculum, with learning objectives absent in almost one third of the faculties. A medical student's first contact with geriatric medicine occurred on average during the second clinical year (median 8th semester). Although the content of geriatric curricula strongly varied among the faculties, core knowledge as recommended by the UEMS was integrated into most of the curricula. Teaching strategies regarding the development of attitudes and skills also recommended by the UEMS were identified in the curriculum of only some faculties. Geriatrics seems to be an established subject in most German and Austrian faculties. However, the current data clearly indicate highly variable quality in geriatric pregraduate training at German and Austrian universities. Because curricula should prepare young people using competence-based training and assessment methods, room for improvement remains not only in terms of structure, but also regarding quality of training to develop self-directed lifelong learners.

Singler K ，Sieber CC ，Biber R ，Roller RE ... -  《-》

Using a structured clinical coaching program to improve clinical skills training and assessment, as well as teachers' and students' satisfaction.

Régo P ，Peterson R ，Callaway L ，Ward M ，O'Brien C ，Donald K ... -  《-》