Faculty of Health Sciences & Medicine

Future Research Projects

A SYSTEMATIC REVIEW OF RCTS IN MEDICAL EDUCATION

Supervisor

Professor Chris Del Mar
Dean of Health Sciences and Medicine

BACKGROUND

This would be under the auspices of BEME (Best Evidence Medical Education (www.bemecollaboration.org) and would be the subject of a systematic review of the literature. Currently there is a lot of interest in medical education, with calls for a return to old values and processes in response to movement in medical education towards small group learning, an emphasis on communication skills, and a corresponding reduction of some basic sciences content (especially anatomy). There is currently a Ministerial review of the area being undertaken. RCTs (randomised controlled trials) have emerged as the best way of testing different interventions in agriculture and medicine. However they have probably been under-utilised in medical education. This review would systematically search for what has been undertaken, and attempt to summarise all that work in one paper.

AIMS OF THE PROJECT

To systematically review the world literature on medical education limiting the methods to RCTs.

METHODS

This will be a systematically literature review. The honours student will have to master the techniques of 1) systematic review; 2) critical appraisal; and 3) information synthesis. There is sufficient expertise within the Faculty to deliver this.