Holmboe, Eric S.

ImportanceWomen remain underrepresented in ophthalmology and gender-based disparities exist in salary, grant receipt, publication rates, and surgical volume throughout training and in practice. Although studies in emergency medicine and general surgery showed mixed findings regarding gender differences in Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME) Milestones ratings, limited data exist examining such differences within ophthalmology.ObjectiveTo examine gender differences in ophthalmology ACGME Milestones.Design, Setting, and ParticipantsThis was a retrospective cross-sectional study of postgraduate year 4 (PGY-4) residents from 120 ophthalmology programs graduating in 2019.Main Outcomes and MeasuresPGY-4 midyear and year-end medical knowledge (MK) and patient care (PC) ratings and Written Qualifying Examination (WQE) scaled scores for residents graduating in 2019 were included. Differential prediction techniques using Generalized Estimating Equations models were performed to identify differences by gender.ResultsOf 452 residents (median [IQR] age, 30.0 [29.0-32.0] years), 275 (61%) identified as men and 177 (39%) as women. There were no differences in PC domain average between women and men for both midyear (−0.07; 95% CI, −0.11 to 0; P =.06) and year-end (−0.04; 95% CI, −0.07 to 0.03; P =.51) assessment periods. For the MK domain average in the midyear assessment period, women (mean [SD], 3.76 [0.50]) were rated lower than men (mean [SD], 3.88 [0.47]; P = .006) with a difference in mean of −0.12 (95% CI, −0.18 to −0.03). For the year-end assessment, however, the average MK ratings were not different for women (mean [SD], 4.10 [0.47]) compared with men (mean [SD], 4.18 [0.47]; P = .20) with a difference in mean of −0.08 (95% CI, −0.13 to 0.03).Conclusions and RelevanceResults suggest that ACGME ophthalmology Milestones in 2 general competencies did not demonstrate major gender bias on a national level at the time of graduation. There were, however, differences in MK ratings at the midyear mark, and as low ratings on evaluations and examinations may adversely affect career opportunities for trainees, it is important to continue further work examining other competencies or performance measures for potential biases.

Medical education exists in the service of patients and communities and must continually calibrate its focus to ensure the achievement of these goals. To close gaps in U.S. health outcomes, medical education is steadily evolving to better prepare providers with the knowledge and skills to lead patient- and systems-level improvements. Systems-related competencies, including high-value care, quality improvement, population health, informatics, and systems thinking, are needed to achieve this but are often curricular islands in medical education, dependent on local context, and have lacked a unifying framework. The third pillar of medical education—health systems science (HSS)—complements the basic and clinical sciences and integrates the full range of systems-related competencies. Despite the movement toward HSS, there remains uncertainty and significant inconsistency in the application of HSS concepts and nomenclature within health care and medical education. In this Article, the authors (1) explore the historical context of several key systems-related competency areas; (2) describe HSS and highlight a schema crosswalk between HSS and systems-related national competency recommendations, accreditation standards, national and local curricula, educator recommendations, and textbooks; and (3) articulate 6 rationales for the use and integration of a broad HSS framework within medical education. These rationales include: (1) ensuring core competencies are not marginalized, (2) accounting for related and integrated competencies in curricular design, (3) providing the foundation for comprehensive assessments and evaluations, (4) providing a clear learning pathway for the undergraduate–graduate–workforce continuum, (5) facilitating a shift toward a national standard, and (6) catalyzing a new professional identity as systems citizens. Continued movement toward a cohesive framework will better align the clinical and educational missions by cultivating the next generation of systems-minded health care professionals.

Purpose To identify common and overlapping themes among the interpersonal and communication skills (ICS), practice-based learning and improvement (PBLI), professionalism (PROF), and systems-based practice (SBP) milestones of the transitional year and 26 specialties. Method In May 2017, milestones were accessed from the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education specialties website. A thematic analysis of the ICS, PBLI, PROF, and SBP milestones was performed to determine unique and common themes across these competencies and across specialties. Keywords from the common program requirements were initially applied as codes to the milestones. Codes were then grouped into common themes. Results Twenty-two themes were identified: 15 (68%) were unique to a given competency (3 related to ICS, 4 related to PBLI, 5 related to PROF, and 3 related to SBP), and 7 (32%) appeared in the milestones of more than one core competency. Eleven themes (50%) were used by 20 or more specialties, and 6 themes (27%) by 10 or fewer specialties. No theme was present across all specialties. Conclusions The ICS, PBLI, PROF, and SBP milestones contain multiple themes with areas of overlap among these four competencies and substantial variability across specialties. This variability may create differential expectations of residents across specialties, complicate faculty development, and make sharing assessment tools difficult. The thematic analysis provides important insights into how individual specialties interpret and operationalize the ICS, PBLI, PROF, and SBP competency domains and can inform future revisions of milestones to enable harmonization and shared understanding of these competencies across specialties where appropriate.

ABSTRACT Background: Sleep deprivation and fatigue have been associated with medical errors, clinical performance decrements, and reduced quality of life for both practicing physicians and medical students. Greater understanding of the impact of sleep quantity on clinical reasoning could improve patient care. The purpose of our pilot study was to examine relationships between clinical reasoning (assessed by functional magnetic resonance imaging) and sleep time (measured in different ways by actigraphy) while answering multiple-choice questions (MCQs) from licensing agencies. Methods: Residents and faculty were administered a clinical reasoning exercise (MCQs from licensing bodies) during functional magnetic resonance imaging. Usual sleep patterns were sampled with actigraphy. Covariate analysis was used to examine the relationship between sleep duration (mean sleep, minimum sleep, maximum sleep) and brain activity during clinical reasoning (solving MCQs from licensing bodies). Results: The mean sleep time over the duration of monitoring for the group was 7.19 hours (SD 0.66) with a range of 6.1 to 8.1 hours (internal medicine faculty 7.1 hours, SD 0.41; internal medicine residents 7.27 hours, SD 0.92). There was a negative relationship between activation in the prefrontal cortex and minimum sleep time while reflecting on MCQs. Conclusion: Our findings provide evidence that the quantity of sleep can modulate brain activity while completing a clinically meaningful task that should be confirmed in larger studies. Our findings suggest that the construct of sleepiness may be more complex than appreciated by many and that the most important of these sleep measures in terms of outcomes remains to be determined.

AbstractIntroductionUnderstanding clinical reasoning is essential for patient care and medical education. Dual‐processing theory suggests that nonanalytic reasoning is an essential aspect of expertise; however, assessing nonanalytic reasoning is challenging because it is believed to occur on the subconscious level. This assumption makes concurrent verbal protocols less reliable assessment tools.MethodsFunctional magnetic resonance imaging was used to explore the neural basis of nonanalytic reasoning in internal medicine interns (novices) and board‐certified staff internists (experts) while completing United States Medical Licensing Examination and American Board of Internal Medicine multiple‐choice questions.ResultsThe results demonstrated that novices and experts share a common neural network in addition to nonoverlapping neural resources. However, experts manifested greater neural processing efficiency in regions such as the prefrontal cortex during nonanalytical reasoning.ConclusionsThese findings reveal a multinetwork system that supports the dual‐process mode of expert clinical reasoning during medical evaluation.