The changing face of MedEdPublish

MedEdPublish has come a long way since it was launched in 2016 by AMEE as an independent academic e-journal that supports scholarship in health professions education. Beginning as a relatively small, in-house publication on a web platform adapted for the purpose, we invited members of our community of practice to submit articles on any topic in health professions education, and encouraged a wide range of article types. All articles were published so long as they met editing criteria and where within scope. Reviews were welcomed from both members of our Review panel and the general readership, all published openly with contributors identified. Many articles attracted several reviews, responses and comments, creating interactive discussion threads that provided learning opportunities for all. The outcome surpassed our expectations, with over 500 articles submitted during 2020, beyond the capacity of our editing team and platform to achieve our promise of rapid publishing. We have now moved to a much larger and powerful web platform, developed by F1000 Research and within the Taylor and Francis stable, the home of AMEE’s other journal, Medical Teacher. Most of our innovations are supported by the new platform and there is scope for further developments. We look forward to an exciting new phase of innovation, powered by the F1000 platform.

Perceptions regarding an ‘effective medical teacher’ among undergraduate students of a medical college in Puducherry

Background: To find the characteristics of an effective medical teacher, as perceived by the under graduate medical students who are at different stages of the MBBS course.Methods: A cross sectional study was done among all the undergraduate medical students studying in a medical college and hospital in Puducherry. The undergraduate students were visited in batches and students were explained regarding objectives and those who consented for the study were administered with a validated and pretested questionnaire in line with the objective of the study. The results are expressed in the form of proportions and percentages and the chi-square-test was used to test the significance of difference observed between different batches of studentResults: The most important qualities perceived by the students for being an effective medical teacher are creating interest in the subject, having good communication skills, providing good resource material, inspiring and motivating students, being easily approachable, respecting students/ patients / other staff, being enthusiastic, energetic and good listener. There is a significant difference in the perceived importance among different batch of students in the domain of teaching skills of a medical teacherConclusions: This study identified qualities of medical teachers related to their teaching skills, usage of teaching learning methods, approach towards students and their personal qualities that are perceived to be more important by medical students.

DEVELOPMENT AND VALIDATION OF INSTRUMENT TO MEASURE THE CHARACTERISTICS OF A HEALTHY ROLE-MODEL IN MEDICAL SCHOOL

Background: A medical teacher as a healthy role-model has a critical role in supporting health promotion effectiveness in medical school. However, an instrument to measure the characteristics of the medical teacher as a healthy role-models is unavailable. This study aimed to develop and validate a questionnaire to evaluate these characteristics by analyzing a model from previous grounded theory.Methods: A total of 442 medical teachers at the Faculty of Medicine, Public Health, and Nursing, Universitas Gadjah Mada, Yogyakarta, were invited to participate. We used hierarchical component models (HCMs) to develop our path model. A partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) were then used to analyze this model.Results: Twenty-six items from seven constructs supports our model. The construct of socially healthy (SH) has the most substantial effect on constructing healthy people's characteristics (H). The constructs of healthy role-models (HRM) in medical schools are mainly influenced by healthy people characteristic (H).Conclusion: A questionnaire with 26 items grouped in these seven constructs showed good reliability and validity. Seven constructs have relevance to the characteristics of a healthy role-model in the medical school model.