Featured series 
Tag: medical education
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Health
Medical immersion for students shifts online in pandemic
Students from as far away as Africa and Asia are benefiting from a COVID-prompted shift online of an HMS program that gives high schoolers a taste of life in the exam room.
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Health
Spare the medical resident and spoil nothing
Hours of medical residents were capped at 80 per week in 2003 after a string of patient injuries and deaths, spurring fears that doctors-in-training would be less prepared for independent practice than before. A new study suggests their warnings were largely unjustified.
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Health
Real as a heart attack, almost
“Standardized patients” are trained actors who role-play the sort of diagnostic puzzles regularly faced by practicing physicians. They interact with students at the Tosteson Medical Education Center at Harvard Medical School (HMS).
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Campus & Community
Flier to step down as Medical School dean
Jeffrey S. Flier will step down as dean of Harvard Medical School next July and return to teaching following a sabbatical year in 2016-17.
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Campus & Community
How doctors think, past and present
Physician and historian David Jones works to bridge the gap between medical science and the social forces that shape it, as Harvard’s first A. Bernard Ackerman Professor of the Culture of Medicine.
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Health
Steffie Woolhandler, MD, MPH, receives excellence in mentoring award from Harvard Medical School
Steffie Woolhandler, MD, MPH, a staff physician and Associate Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School (HMS), is a recipient of the 2008-2009 A. Clifford Barger Excellence in Mentoring Award. The Office for Diversity and Community Partnership at HMS sponsors the award, which was recently presented at the thirteenth annual Awards Ceremony, held at the…
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Health
When physicians share notes with their patients
Patients across the country are voicing a growing desire for greater engagement in, and control over, their own medical care. A new study led by Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC) will examine the impact of adding a new layer of openness to a traditionally one-sided element of the doctor-patient relationship – the notes from…
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Health
Low blood sugar in hospital linked to higher death risk
Harvard researchers at Brigham and Women’s Hospital (BWH) found that diabetics hospitalized for noncritical illnesses who develop hypoglycemia (low blood sugar) during hospitalization have an increased likelihood of remaining hospitalized longer and a greater risk of mortality both during and after hospitalization. This research appears in the July 2009 issue of Diabetes Care. Previous research…
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Health
Doctors override most electronic medication safety alerts
Computer-based systems that allow clinicians to prescribe drugs electronically are designed to automatically warn of potential medication errors, but a new study reveals clinicians often override the alerts and rely instead on their own judgment. The study, led by investigators at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC), suggests that most clinicians…
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Science & Tech
Harvard Medical School to reduce student debt burden
Harvard Medical School (HMS) Dean Jeffrey Flier today announced that the school is taking steps to reduce the cost of a four-year medical education by an average of $50,000 for families with incomes of $120,000 or less. “The issue of student debt is of great concern to me, which is why I feel particular satisfaction…
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Campus & Community
And the survey says: Harvard docs practice what they preach
Do Harvard doctors practice what they preach? The Harvard Health Letter, the country’s first health newsletter for the general public, recently surveyed more than 15,000 Harvard Medical School faculty physicians about their health habits and found that, in many cases, yes, they do. In this 30th anniversary year for the Harvard Health Letter, the editors…
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Health
Survey shows Harvard doctors practice what they preach
In the 30th anniversary year for the Harvard Health Letter, the editors decided to revive a tradition and ask Harvard doctors whether they follow their own advice – two similar surveys were conducted in 1982 and 1992. Results from the 2,115 faculty members (1,185 male and 930 female) who responded were reported in the October…
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Campus & Community
Is testing rational?
How can scientific research better inform education policy? That question is at the core of the three-part Burton and Ingles Lecture Series at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, which has made the translation of solid educational research into educational practice one of its priorities under Dean Ellen Lagemann. Michael Feuer, a leading educational research…
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Health
Older doctors less likely to follow current standards of care
The study included a review of previously published papers with a large sample size of doctors. These studies included measures of physician knowledge or quality of care as well as the time since the physician’s medical school graduation or the physician’s age. The majority of these studies showed a decline in performance with time. Co-author…
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Health
Study shows medical schools lack end-of-life training
A study, published by Dana-Farber researchers in the September 2003 issue of the Journal of General Internal Medicine, suggests that increasing medical students’ opportunities to learn about end-of-life care will require not only curriculum changes, but a re-examination of some of the unspoken rules that govern medical education. “The tremendous growth of hospice and palliative…
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Health
Close adherence to traditional Mediterranean diet promotes longevity
The traditional Mediterranean diet features an abundance of vegetables, legumes, fruits, nuts and cereals and regular use of olive oil (monounsaturated fats), moderate amounts of fish and dairy products (mostly yogurt or cheese), small amounts of red meat (low intake of saturated fats) and moderate consumption of alcohol, usually in the form of wine and…
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Health
Students develop system to fight TB
A new system developed by Harvard undergraduates delivers anti-tuberculosis drugs through an inhaler, increasing the likelihood that patients will take them over longer periods, and reducing the side effects of pills and injections. To test and market the system, the group has formed a nonprofit corporation called MEND (MEdicine in NeeD). “It’s the beginning of…
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Science & Tech
New online approach builds community around medical cases
A new suite of Internet tools is boosting student-faculty interaction in an engrossing twist on traditional case-based teaching at Harvard Medical School. Called ICON, for “interactive case-based online network,” the cases are run by a faculty-student-IT specialist trio at Harvard Medical School, backed by extensive cross-faculty collaboration. ICON is revamping neuroscience case-based learning by engrossing…
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Health
One-tenth of medical residents feel unprepared
Findings from a study suggest that gaps exist in the preparedness of physicians to manage the full range of patients, procedures and problems they may encounter. A surprising one in 10 of medical residents said they felt unprepared to deal with such tasks as the treatment of HIV/AIDS, substance abuse, nursing home patients, management of…
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Science & Tech
State-of-the-art health guide created
Harvard Medical School believes it has a cure for problems associated with finding accurate, up-to-date medical information: a comprehensive (1,288 pages), $40 medical guide tied to a Web site that will update the book weekly. Published by Simon and Schuster in October 1999, it’s the first family health guide that will never go out of…
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Health
‘Take two aspirin and call me manana’
Harvard Medical School is attempting to bridge the language barriers that sometimes arise in medical settings. A set of three medical phrasebooks was first offered in 1999 in three different languages: Communicating with the Patient during Urgent Care, Communicating with the Patient on Work Rounds, and Communicating with the Patient during Review of Systems. All…