Background: Evidence indicating the limited amount of hands-on experience in the current era of medical training has raised concern regarding students’ development and potential deficiencies in the performance of basic procedural skills. Studies have demonstrated the value of surgical workshops for medical students; however evaluation of improved student performance during future clerkships or ...

INTRODUCTION The number of GPs providing procedural services in rural areas is declining; however, few studies have investigated issues directly relevant to recently qualified doctors. Limited published data and anecdotal reports in Australia suggest that a large proportion of doctors leave rural procedural practice soon after training. This study aimed to: (1) describe where GPs practice in th...

Can we help people forget less by knowing how they learn? Can we decrease forgetting by modifying what they learn? These have been long-standing questions in applied cognitive science and engineering. My dissertation study addresses the decay of procedural skills. A study paradigm was created to investigate learning and forgetting of procedural skills in a laboratory setting. Human participants...

Huge amounts of money are spent every year on unlearning programs--in drug-treatment facilities, prisons, psychotherapy clinics, and schools. Yet almost all of these programs fail, since recidivism rates are high in each of these fields. Progress on this problem requires a better understanding of the mechanisms that make unlearning so difficult. Much cognitive neuroscience evidence suggests tha...

INTRODUCTION Many students, while performing clinical skills such as medical interviewing/ communication, physical examination, and procedural tasks, have never been observed by faculty members or residents. This study aimed to explore the relationships between final-year medical students' self-reported confidence and the frequency of direct observation by faculty member or resident while condu...