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Research in medical education: balancing service and science.

ABSTRACT: Since the latter part of the 1990's, the English-speaking medical education community has been engaged in a debate concerning the types of research that should have priority. To shed light on this debate and to better understand its implications for the practice of research, 23 semi-structured interviews were conducted with "influential figures" from the community. The results were analyzed using the concept of "field" developed by the sociologist Pierre Bourdieu. The results reveal that a large majority of these influential figures believe that research in medical education continues to be of insufficient quality despite the progress that has taken place over the past 2 decades. According to this group, studies tend to be both redundant and opportunistic, and researchers tend to have limited understanding of both theory and methodological practice from the social sciences. Three factors were identified by the participants to explain the current problems in research: the working conditions of researchers, budgetary restraints in financing research in medical education, and the conception of research in the medical environment. Two principal means for improving research are presented: intensifying collaboration between PhD's and clinicians, and encouraging the diversification of perspectives brought to bear on research in medical education.

SUBMITTER: Albert M

PROVIDER: S-EPMC2779425 | biostudies-other | 2007 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-other

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Project description:ContextLongitudinal qualitative research is an approach to research that entails generating qualitative data with the same participants over extended periods of time to understand their lived experiences as those experiences unfold. Knowing about dynamic lived experiences in medical education, that is, learning journeys with stops and starts, detours, transitions and reversals, enriches understanding of events and accomplishments along the way. The purpose of this paper is to create access points to longitudinal qualitative research in support of increasing its use in medical education.MethodsThe authors explore and argue for different conceptualisations of time: analysing lived experiences through time versus analysing lived experiences cross-sectional or via 2-point follow-up studies and considering time as subjective and fluid as well as objective and fixed. They introduce applications of longitudinal qualitative research from several academic domains: investigating development and formal education; building longitudinal research relationship; and exploring interconnections between individual journeys and social structures. They provide an illustrative overview of longitudinal qualitative research in medical education, and end with practical advice, or pearls, for medical education investigators interested in using this research approach: collecting data recursively; analysing longitudinal data in three strands; addressing mutual reflexivity; using theory to illuminate time; and making a long-term commitment to longitudinal qualitative research.ConclusionsLongitudinal qualitative research stretches investigators to think differently about time and undertake more complex analyses to understand dynamic lived experiences. Research in medical education will likely be impoverished if the focus remains on time as fixed. Seeing things qualitatively through time, where time is fluid and the past, present and future interpenetrate, produces a rich understanding that can move the field forward.

Project description:BackgroundUniversities undertake the majority of publicly funded research in Germany and hence bear a responsibility to contribute to global health efforts. So far, involvement and impact of German medical faculties in global health are unknown. Our aim was to systematically asses and evaluate German medical faculties' contribution to global health related research and education, as well as their policies and practices concerning open access publishing and equitable licensing.MethodsWe assessed the involvement in global health of all 36 publicly funded medical faculties in Germany during 2010-2014 in three areas: innovation, access and education, using the following indicators: research funding and publications focused on global health or poverty-related and neglected diseases; open access publishing and policies promoting access to medical innovations worldwide; provision of global health education. Data were gathered from public databases, university websites and questionnaires sent to individual universities for validation and triangulation.ResultsThere was a high level of variability between institutions and indicators. The proportion of research funding for poverty-related and neglected diseases research ranged between 0.0-1.1%. The top five institutions received nearly 85% of the total poverty-related and neglected diseases research funding. 20 of 36 universities had an institutional open access publishing policy, 19 had an open access publishing fund, 16 had neither. Only one university reported having used an equitable licensing policy. 22 of 36 faculties provided some global health education, but only one of them included global health in their core undergraduate medical curriculum as a compulsory course with more than just single lectures.ConclusionObtained data indicate that global health and poverty-related and neglected diseases research at German medical faculties is highly concentrated in a few institutions, open-access publishing and equitable licensing policies are mostly absent, and only little global health education exists. Universities and government should address global health strategically in both research and education at medical faculties to reflect the country's economic and political weight and human resource potential.

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Research in medical education: balancing service and science.

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