David Solomon

• PhD
• Professor Emeritus at Michigan State University

Purpose This study quantified the impact of clinical clerkships on medical students’ disciplinary knowledge using the Comprehensive Clinical Science Examination (CCSE) as a formative assessment tool. Methods This study involved 155 third-year medical students in the College of Human Medicine at Michigan State University who matriculated in 2016. D...

Purpose Our US medical school uses National Board of Medical Examiners (NBME) tests as progress tests during the pre-clerkship curriculum to assess students. In this study, we examined students’ growth patterns using progress tests in the first year of medical school to identify students at risk for failing United States Medical Licensing Examinati...

Background: Medical students must meet curricular expectations and pass national licensing examinations to become physicians. However, no previous studies explicitly modeled stages of medical students acquiring basic science knowledge. In this study, we employed an innovative statistical model to characterize students' growth using progress testin...

Medical students must meet curricular expectations and pass national licensing examinations to become physicians. The Michigan State University College of Human Medicine implemented progress testing in place of discipline-specific examinations as its primary assessment of knowledge in 2016. Ideally this innovative assessment strategy will character...

Purpose: Metacognition and critical thinking are essential for academic success. The relationship between these components and medical student learning, as assessed with progress examinations, can inform curriculum development and efforts to ensure learning progression of all students. This study assessed learning mechanisms by modeling medical st...

Background This study evaluates the generalizability of an eight-station progress clinical skills examination and assesses the growth in performance for six clinical skills domains among first- and second-year medical students over four time points during the academic year. Methods We conducted a generalizability study for longitudinal and cross-s...

Background This study evaluates the generalizability of an eight-station progress clinical skills examination and assesses the growth in performance for six clinical skills domains among first- and second-year medial students over four time points during the academic year. Methods We conducted a generalizability study for longitudinal and cross-sec...

Introduction Medical students often do not value attending in-person large group sessions. It is also not clear from prior research whether attendance at large group sessions impact on performance in medical school. The goal of this study was to assess the relationship between voluntary attendance in large group sessions organized as a “flipped cla...

Objective: We tested the hypothesis that trained medical faculty can train residents effectively in a mental health care model. Methods: After the authors trained medical faculty intensively for 15 months in primary care mental health, the newly trained faculty taught medical residents intensively. Residents were evaluated pre- and post-residenc...

This article reviews the ways through which subscription-based scholarly journals have converted to open access. The methodology included a comprehensive literature review of both published and 'grey' literature, such as blog posts and press releases. Eight interviews were also conducted with stakeholders representing different parts of the scholar...

Background. Open access (OA) publishing via article processing charges (APCs) is growing as an alternative to subscription publishing. The Pay It Forward (PIF) Project is exploring the feasibility of transitioning from paying subscriptions to funding APCs for faculty at research intensive universities. Estimating of the cost of APCs for the journal...

Raw Data and Documention

This report identifies ways through which subscription-based scholarly journals have converted their publishing models to open access (OA). The major goal was to identify specific scenarios that have been used or proposed for transitioning subscription journals to OA so that these scenarios can provide options for others seeking to “flip” their jou...

The subscription prices of peer-reviewed journals have in the past not been closely related to the scientific quality. This relationship has been further obscured by bundled e-licenses. The situation is different for Open Access (OA) journals that finance their operations via article processing charges (APCs). Due to competition and the fact that a...

ABSTRACT • Objective: To describe the clinical presentations of medical patients attending a behavioral health clinic staffed by medical residents and faculty in the patients’ usual medical setting. • Methods: We extracted the following clinical data from the patients’ electronic medical records: duration of problem; symptom presentation; symptom t...

Aim. To determine the characteristics of megajournal authors, the nature of the manuscripts they are submitting to these journals, factors influencing their decision to publish in a megajournal, sources of funding for article processing charges (APCs) or other fees and their likelihood of submitting to a megajournal in the future. Methods. Web-base...

Open access (OA) publishing is steadily growing in both full OA journals and hybrid journals where authors can pay to open up individual articles. Funding for article processing charges (APCs) is still a strong barrier for many authors, particularly for subscription journals where the hybrid option is expensive and an added extra feature after an a...

Background: The meaningful use (MU) of electronic medical records (EMRs) is being implemented in three stages. Key objectives of stage one include electronic analysis of data entered into structured fields, using decision-support tools (e.g., checking drug-drug interactions [DDI]) and electronic information exchange. Objective: The authors asses...

Background: We developed, implemented, and assessed a web-based clinical evaluation application (i.e., CEX app) for Internet-enabled mobile devices, including mobile phones. The app displays problem-specific checklists that correspond to training problems created by the Clerkship Directors in Internal Medicine. Purpose: We hypothesized that use...

Publishing in scholarly peer reviewed journals usually entails long delays from submission to publication. In part this is due to the length of the peer review process and in part because of the dominating tradition of publication in issues, earlier a necessity of paper-based publishing, which creates backlogs of manuscripts waiting in line. The de...

Valid, direct observation of medical student competency in clinical settings remains challenging and limits the opportunity to promote performance-based student advancement. The rationale for direct observation is to ascertain that students have acquired the core clinical competencies needed to care for patients. Too often student observation resul...

The study documents the growth in the number of journals and articles along with the increase in normalized citation rates of open access (OA) journals listed in the Scopus bibliographic database between 1999 and 2010. Longitudinal statistics on growth in journals/articles and citation rates are broken down by funding model, discipline, and whether...

This study assessed characteristics of publishers who published 2010 open access (OA) journals indexed in Scopus. Publishers were categorized into six types; professional, society, university, scholar/researcher, government, and other organizations. Type of publisher was broken down by number of journals/articles published in 2010, funding model, l...

Open access (OA) journals make their full text content available for free on the Web and use other means than subscriptions or access charges for funding the publication process. Publication fees or article processing charges (APC)s have become the predominant means for funding professional OA publishing. We surveyed 1,038 authors from seven discip...

It has been approximately 20 years since distributing scholarly journals digitally became feasible. This article discusses the broad implications of the transition to digital distributed scholarship from a historical perspective and focuses on the development of open access (OA) and the various models for funding OA in the context of the roles scho...

Article processing charges (APCs) are a central mechanism for funding open access (OA) scholarly publishing. We studied the APCs charged and article volumes of journals that were listed in the Directory of Open Access Journals as charging APCs. These included 1,370 journals that published 100,697 articles in 2010. The average APC was $906 U.S. doll...

In the past few years there has been an ongoing debate as to whether the proliferation of open access (OA) publishing would damage the peer review system and put the quality of scientific journal publishing at risk. Our aim was to inform this debate by comparing the scientific impact of OA journals with subscription journals, controlling for journa...

The article processing charge (APC) is currently the primary method of funding professionally published open access (OA) peer-reviewed journals. The pricing principles of 77 OA publishers publishing over 1,000 journals using APCs were studied and classified. The most commonly used pricing method is a single fixed fee, which can either be the same f...

Abstract Eating fish is generally accepted as an important part of a healthy diet. The American Heart Association diet and lifestyle recommendations suggest consuming oily fish at least twice a week. Although consuming fish has important health benefits, it also poses some potential risks. Certain fish contain significant levels of chemicals that c...

Open access (OA) journals distribute their content at no charge and use other means of funding the publication process. Publication fees or article-processing charges (APC)s have become the predominant means for funding professional OA publishing. We surveyed 1,038 authors who recently published articles in 74 OA journals that charge APCs stratifie...

To train medical residents and nurses to work together as a patient-centered care (PCC) team on a medical ward and test its feasibility, nurses' learning, and patient outcomes. Working with administrative leadership, we consolidated residents' patients on one 32-bed ward. Already training residents in an evidence-based patient-centered method, we n...

Iwould like to thank Robert Ferguson, MD and the Editorial Team of the Journal of Community Hospital Internal Medicine Perspectives (JCHIMP) for the opportunity to write this commentary and congratulate them on the launch of the Journal which will serve as a valuable resource for physicians and other health professionals practicing in community set...

Facilitating direct observation of medical students' clinical competencies is a pressing need. We developed an electronic problem-specific Clinical Evaluation Exercise (eCEX) based on a national curriculum. We assessed its feasibility in monitoring and recording students' competencies and the impact of a grading incentive on the frequency of direct...

The relationship between osteopathic (COMLEX) and allopathic (USMLE) exam scores in not well described. We sought to describe the relationship between COMLEX and USMLE scores for osteopathic medical students who reported scores for both exams during application to internal medicine residency. Cross sectional study of 588 matched USMLE/COMLEX Step 1...

Portable computers are widely used by medical trainees, but there is a lack of data on how these devices are used in clinical education programs. The objective is to define the current use of portable computing in internal medicine clerkships and to determine medicine clerkship directors' perceptions of the current value and future importance of po...

Background: Direct observation of medical students' clinical skills by faculty is uncommon. However, such observation enhances the validity of medical students' clinical performance evaluation. Objectives: We developed and tested a the effect of a grading incentive along with a mobile, competency-specific assessment tool (eCEX) involving eleven fac...

Patient encounter logs help assess a student's educational experience. The use of a grading incentive linked to the mandatory documentation of prespecified clinical encounters has been insufficiently studied. Given this, our objectives were to determine (a) if mandating student exposure to patients with 18 key training problems leads to the success...

Current screening tests for gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM) are inconvenient. Therefore, alternative screening tests for GDM are desirable. The use of glycohemoglobin A1c (HbA1c) in screening for GDM remains controversial. We undertook this study to evaluate the utility of HbA1c in screening for GDM. Retrospective study in a tertiary teaching h...

Glycohemoglobin A1c (HbA1c) is a universally accepted tool for glycemic control. Portable HbA1c devices for use in physicians' offices are desirable because they provide immediate results that physicians can share with their patients. This has been shown to enhance self-management in patients with diabetes. We undertook this study to evaluate the a...

This article discusses recent innovations in how peer review is conducted in light of the various functions journals fulfill in scholarly communities.

Introduction. The development of the World Wide Web (WWW) has made it possible of small groups of colleagues or even single individuals to create peer-reviewed scholarly journals. This paper discusses the development of Medical Education Online (MEO) an open access peer-reviewed journal in health professional education. Description. MEO was first p...

This chapter discusses the rapid transition from paper to electronic distribution of scholarly journals and how this has led to open-access journals that make their content freely available over the Internet. It presents the practical and ethical arguments for providing open access to publicly funded research and scholarship and outlines a variety...

This paper discusses different forms of open access publishing and argues that small Independent journals that are funded though subsidies provide an Important niche In scholarly publishing. One such journal, Medical Education Online (MEO) Is used as a case study characterizing the dilemma these journals can face In maintaining their operations as...

Objective: To assess the sources of measurement error in an electrocardiogram (ECG) interpretation examination given in a third-year internal medicine clerkship. Design: Three successive generalizability studies were conducted. (1) Multiple faculty rated student responses to a previously administered exam. (2) The rating criteria were revised and s...

Medical education is increasingly being conducted in community-based teaching sites at diverse locations, making it difficult to provide a consistent curriculum. We conducted a randomized trial to assess whether students who viewed digital lectures would perform as well on a measure of cognitive knowledge as students who viewed live lectures. Stude...

It is not clear that teaching specific history taking, physical examination and patient teaching techniques to medical students results in durable behavioural changes. We used a quasi-experimental design that approximated a randomized double blinded trial to examine whether a Participatory Decision-Making (PDM) educational module taught in a clerks...

Rating scales form an important means of gathering evaluation data. Since important decisions are often based on these evaluations, determining the reliability of rating data can be critical. Most commonly used methods of estimating reliability require a complete set of ratings i.e. every subject being rated must be rated by each judge. Over fifty...

To assess the sources of measurement error in an electrocardiogram (ECG) interpretation examination given in a third-year internal medicine clerkship. Three successive generalizability studies were conducted. (1) Multiple faculty rated student responses to a previously administered exam. (2) The rating criteria were revised and study 1 was repeated...

This paper discusses the implications electronic dissemination for the peer-reviewed serial publication system. To make sense of this complex issue, it is helpful to view it from the perspective of the origins of the system and its three core functions, the ranking of scholarship, facilitating interactive communication among scholars, and creating...

Curriculum evaluation plays an important role in substantive curriculum change. The experience of the University of Texas Medical Branch (UTMB) with evaluation processes developed for the new Integrated Medical Curriculum (IMC) illustrates how evaluation methods may be chosen to match the goals of the curriculum evaluation process. Quantitative dat...

Standardized patient examinations (SPE) are widely used in medical education to assess skills that cannot be measured with written examinations. Trained actors termed standardized patients (SPs) are used to simulate patients with specific medical problems. SPs typically use behaviorally specific checklists and rating scales to evaluate examinees. T...

There has been a discussion among medical educators concerning grade inflation; however, little has been written about it in the medical education literature. A survey was developed to determine if grade inflation exists by gathering data about grading practices and by gathering the opinions of course directors from Internal Medicine clerkships. Th...

With the increasing shift to community-based ambulatory education, it is essential to gain a better understanding of the impact of these changes. To assess the impact of the location and structure of an ambulatory internal medicine clerkship rotation on cognitive knowledge and clinical performance, students were assigned to one of the following: (a...

The ramifications of shifting from paper to electronic serial publication are discussed in light of the recent National Institutes of Health (NIH) proposal for a comprehensive electronic archive of peer-reviewed and preprint publications. The paper evaluates six concerns that have been expressed about the conversion to a purely electronic journal s...

The majority of graduating medical students will become primary care physicians. We discuss what urological topics primary care physicians need to know, proficiency in urological skills of primary care physicians and undergraduate urological curriculum recommendations that would serve the needs of primary care physicians. A written survey instrumen...

Little is known about the patterns of health care utilization in the U.S. prison population. Hemodialysis access-related health care utilization has been well investigated in non-incarcerated samples and therefore, maximizes opportunity for comparison with the incarcerated and non-incarcerated subgroups of our study cohort. To examine the independe...

Patient care is shifting from an inpatient setting to an ambulatory setting. Despite this shift, most internal medicine clerkships provide the majority of medical student training in inpatient settings or in university tertiary care clinics, which are not representative of patient care in a community setting. We created a separate ambulatory clerks...

To evaluate whether written standards increase the reproducibility of a physician-facilitated station in an objective structured clinical examination (OSCE) designed to assess history, physical-examination, and communication skills. The OSCE examination at the University of Texas Medical Branch-Galveston consists of ten eight-minute stations. Six o...

This study estimated the interrater reliability of medical student evaluations of clinical teaching. Data consisted of 1,570 ratings evaluating 147 faculty over a 4-year period in a 3rd-year internal medicine clerkship. The number of ratings a typical faculty member receives in a year was also calculated and used to extrapolate the standard error o...

LEARNING OUTCOME: to recognize the effect that the high prevalence of obesity may have on physician perception of patient body habitus While the prevalence of obesity is approximately 30% nationally, a survey of patients in our internal medicine (IM) clinic found a 50% prevalence based on a body mass index (BMI)>30kg/m². A subsequent study revealed...

Tuberculosis is a recognized health problem in United States' prisons and jails. To assess tuberculosis knowledge and beliefs among incarcerated persons and non-medical employees of correctional facilities, written questionnaires were administered to 456 individuals incarcerated in the Texas Department of Criminal Justice (TDCJ), 127 staff of TDCJ...

LEARNING OUTCOME: to recognize the value of assessing current physician behavior for the development of a focused, practical nutrition education program Despite a recent national focus on health and fitness Americans are becoming fatter. Current studies estimate 30% of the adult population is overweight. Using height and weight data, a survey of ou...

In an exploratory study of the HIV risk-taking behaviors and risk reduction readiness of a sample of 74 hard-to-reach, out-of-treatment African American and Mexican American drug-using women who are at high risk for HIV infection, Mexican American women were found to be more likely than African American women to have drug-using sexual partners and...

This study identified dimensions of clinical competence underlying faculty ratings of fourth-year student performance in a standardized patient examination and assessed the impact of these dimensions on faculty pass/fail decisions. Content review coupled with exploratory factor analysis was used to group 17 of 25 specific behavioral rating categori...

To describe how often a right heart catheterization was performed at the time of coronary angiography, the patient characteristics that predicted the use of this procedure, and the variation among cardiologists in the use of this test, we reviewed all cases of coronary angiography (n = 1,282) during the first 2 mo of 1993 at two large community hos...

Over the last five years, ambulatory clinic time has doubled in our I.M. residency program. Primary care didactic education has also been significantly strengthened, in order to determine the impact of this curricular shift, we mailed a survey to 256 alumni. The response rate exceeded 70%. Alumni were asked to indicate the adequacy of their trainin...

To describe the effect of age on the care of patients hospitalized with acute myocardial infarction (MI). Retrospective chart review of all cases with a primary or secondary discharge diagnosis of acute MI. Two large community hospitals in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, from July 1, 1990 to June 30, 1991. There were 771 charts reviewed, of which, 149 cases...

In this article, the authors explore senior medical students' specialty preferences and investigate factors that influence those preferences. The design of the study was a written questionnaire. The setting was a large, state-supported university-based southern medical school. The patients/participants were students entering the fourth year of medi...

To evaluate a novel item format for assessing clinical problem solving in a standardized-patient examination (SPE). In 1992-93 a key-findings item format was included in two versions of three stations in an SPE (given in the style of an objective structured clinical examination) that was taken by 198 third-year students at the end of their three-mo...

Evaluation of student clinical performance is an essential task for medical educators. Standardized patients and objective structured clinical examinations (OSCEs) can be useful tools in clinical evaluation but are often limited by artificiality, tedious scoring of open‐ended responses, and limited scoring options. We describe the adaptation of an...