John McLachlan

University of Central Lancashire | UCLAN · Medical School

We define cheating as the intentional use of prohibited materials, processes or assistance to undermine the validity of the assessment and gain an unfair advantage. We explore various ways in which cheating can occur and classify these under the three terms of the definition. Improper use of materials includes plagiarism, access to prohibited mater...

Driven by demand for high standards in university education, efforts have been made in the UK to address the perceived imbalance between teaching and research. However, teaching is still perceived by many as having less credibility and is attributed less importance. The purpose of our research was to explore how distinct types of academic job profi...

Background Standard setting is one of the most challenging aspects of assessment in high-stakes healthcare settings. The Angoff methodology is widely used, but poses a number of challenges, including conceptualisation of the just-passing candidate, and the time-cost of implementing the method. Cohen methodologies are inexpensive and rapid but rely...

Objectives: Our aim was to explore the relationship between medical student Conscientiousness Index scores and indicators of later clinical performance held in the UK Medical Education Database (UKMED). Objectives were to determine whether conscientiousness in first-year and second-year medical students predicts later performance in medical school...

INTRODUCTION UK surgical training currently faces the challenge of expanding surgical skills in a context of reduced training opportunities. Video-review in theatre offers the potential to gain more from each learning opportunity and to enhance feedback. AIM This was a designed-based study to test the feasibility of using synchronized video-review...

Background Standard setting is one of the most challenging aspects of assessment in high-stakes healthcare settings. The Angoff methodology is widely used, but poses a number of challenges, including conceptualisation of the just-passing candidate, and the time-cost of implementing the method. Cohen methodologies are inexpensive and rapid but rely...

Background Standard setting is one of the most challenging aspects of assessment in high-stakes healthcare settings. The Angoff methodology is widely used, but poses a number of challenges, including conceptualisation of the just-passing candidate, and the time-cost of implementing the method. Cohen methodologies are inexpensive and rapid but rely...

Introduction: In the UK, surgical training is under pressure due to reductions in training time and training opportunities, which pose patient safety risks. Cognitive, nontechnical, training has been suggested as a possible solution inspired by the identified benefits in aviation industry. A recent review article highlighted the need for such trai...

Consensus on how to assess non-technical skills is lacking. This systematic review aimed to evaluate the evidence regarding non-technical skills assessments in undergraduate medical education, to describe the tools used, learning outcomes and the validity, reliability and psychometrics of the instruments. A standardized search of online databases w...

With the availability of numerous adjuncts or alternatives to learning anatomy other than cadavers (medical imaging, models, body painting, interactive media, virtual reality) and the costs of maintaining cadaver laboratories, it was considered timely to have a mature debate about the need for cadavers in the teaching of undergraduate medicine. Thi...

Although there is extensive evidence confirming the predictive validity of situational judgement tests (SJTs) in medical education, there remains a shortage of evidence for their predictive validity for performance of postgraduate trainees in their first role in clinical practice. Moreover, to date few researchers have empirically examined the comp...

Unfortunately an error was inadvertently introduced into Table 2 during the proofs procedure. The correct version is given below (Table 2).

Background International medical graduates working in the UK are more likely to be censured in relation to fitness to practise compared to home graduates. Performance on the General Medical Council’s (GMC’s) Professional and Linguistic Assessments Board (PLAB) tests and English fluency have previously been shown to predict later educational perform...

Background The concept of professionalism is complex and subjective and relies on expert judgements. Currently, there are no existing objective measures of professionalism in anaesthesia. However, it is possible that at least some elements of professionalism may be indicated by objective measures. A number of studies have suggested that conscientio...

Context: Many health services and systems rely on the contribution of international medical graduates (IMGs) to the workforce. However, concern has grown around their regulation and professional practice. There is a need, in the absence of strong evidence and a robust theoretical base, for a deeper understanding of the efficacy of interventions us...

Appendix S1. Search terms. Appendix S2. Table of inclusion and exclusion criteria. Appendix S3. Scale for assessing relevance and rigour of papers. Appendix S4. Example of CMOc. Use of theory to explain why Gerrish & Griffith (2004) reported successful intervention outcomes Appendix S5. Example of CMOc. Use of theory to explain why one individ...

Background The UK Clinical Aptitude Test (UKCAT) has been shown to have a modest but statistically significant ability to predict aspects of academic performance throughout medical school. Previously, this ability has been shown to be incremental to conventional measures of educational performance for the first year of medical school. This study ev...

Although there is extensive evidence confirming the predictive validity of situational judgement tests (SJTs) in medical education, there remains a shortage of evidence for their predictive validity for performance of postgraduate trainees in their first role in clinical practice. Moreover, to date few researchers have empirically examined the comp...

There is an insufficient number of medical students intending to pursue general practitioner (GP) careers. The undergraduate curriculum has traditionally prioritised teaching in large hospital settings despite most National Health Service patient contact occurring in primary care. Primary care is faced with providing health care for an ageing popul...

Following the GMC's report on Tomorrow's Doctors, greater emphasis has been placed on training in clinical skills, and the integration of clinical and basic sciences within the curriculum to promote the development of effective doctors. The use of simulation in the learning environment has the potential to support the development of clinical skills...

Background Over recent years, wide ranging changes have occurred in undergraduate medical curricula with reduction of hours allocated for teaching anatomy. Anatomy forms the foundation of clinical practice. However, the challenge of acquiring sufficient anatomical knowledge in undergraduate medical education for safe and competent clinical practice...

Although medical curricula now adopt an integrated teaching approach, this is not adequately reflected in assessment of anatomy knowledge and skills. In this study, we aimed to explore the impact of the addition of clinical vignette to item stems on students' performance in anatomy practical examinations. In this study, 129 undergraduate medical st...

To determine whether use of the Professional and Linguistic Assessments Board (PLAB) examination system used to grant registration for international medical graduates results in equivalent postgraduate medical performance, as evaluated at Annual Review of Competence Progression (ARCP), between UK based doctors who qualified overseas and those who o...

The UK Clinical Aptitude Test (UKCAT) was introduced to facilitate widening participation in medical and dental education in the UK by providing universities with a continuous variable to aid selection; one that might be less sensitive to the sociodemographic background of candidates compared to traditional measures of educational attainment. Initi...

The delivery of undergraduate clinical education in underserved areas is increasing in various contexts across the world in response to local workforce needs. A collective understanding of the impact of these placements is lacking. Previous reviews have often taken a positivist approach by only looking at outcome measures. This review addresses the...

The need to develop effective tools to measure professionalism continues to challenge medical educators; thus, as a follow-up to a recent examination of the "Conscientiousness Index" (CI, a novel measure of one facet of professionalism) in one setting with preclinical medical students, the authors aimed to investigate the validity of the CI as a pr...

Professionalism in medical students is not only difficult to define but difficult to teach and measure. As negative behaviour in medical students is associated with post-graduate disciplinary action it would be useful to have a model whereby unprofessional behaviour at the undergraduate level can easily be identified to permit appropriate intervent...

To determine whether the use of the UK clinical aptitude test (UKCAT) in the medical schools admissions process reduces the relative disadvantage encountered by certain sociodemographic groups. Prospective cohort study. Applicants to 22 UK medical schools in 2009 that were members of the consortium of institutions utilising the UKCAT as a component...

Professionalism is a difficult construct to define in medical students but aspects of this concept may be important in predicting the risk of postgraduate misconduct. For this reason attempts are being made to evaluate medical students' professionalism. This study investigated the psychometric properties of Selected Response Questions (SRQs) relati...

A method of carrying out grafts of early embryonic chick limb buds to the chick chorio-allantoic membrane is described which greatly reduces the time required for the procedure, demands a low level of manipulative skill, and does not require any complex media or equipment. A processing schedule which renders cartilage elements visible in whole moun...

So called integrative medicine should not be used as a way of smuggling alternative practices into rational medicine by way of lowered standards of critical thinking. Failure to detect an obvious hoax is not an encouraging sign

there is gathering evidence that concern about professionalism expressed by staff with regard to undergraduate medical students represents a statistically significant risk factor for referral for disciplinary action in later clinical practice. But, 'professionalism' as a concept is variously defined, and is generally seen as difficult to measure. T...

A number of studies have explored student attitudes to examining each other (peer physical examination: PPE). Differences have emerged in whether students prefer to be examined by friends or strangers. Changes have been reported in how students feel about PPE if asked before or after the PPE programme commences. RESEARCH INTENTION: Since a Grounded...

Godden and Baddeley ( 1975 ) suggested strong contextual influence on recall, suggesting learning in an educational context might not transfer well to practice. To explore the impact of an authentic context (wearing hospital scrubs) on learning and recall. 82 first year medical students sat a pre-test on renal gross anatomy and imaging, to establis...

Measures of professionalism in undergraduate medical students are generally subjective in nature, and based on limited observations of behaviours in observed settings. We have previously described an objective scalar measure of conscientiousness over many occasions, and shown that it correlates with independent faculty estimates of students' profes...

Measuring professional behavior is problematic not least because the concept of professionalism is difficult to define. The authors describe a measurement tool that does not rely on qualitative judgments from respondents but, nonetheless, clearly correlates with individuals' subjective views about what constitutes professional behavior. The authors...

Despite recommendations stemming from the 1930s espousing the value of a living anatomy component in undergraduate medical education, living anatomy remains relatively under described. In this article, we explore the role of the living anatomy model in living anatomy teaching. Our report is based on a larger ethnographic study of living anatomy cla...

Measuring professionalism in undergraduate medical students is a difficult process, and no one method has currently emerged as the definitive means of assessment in this field. Student skills in reflection have been shown to be highly important in the development of professional behaviours. By studying student reflections on lapses in professional...

The transferability of clinical skills teaching methods from one culture to another are explored through a case study comparing anatomy teaching methods in Japan and the UK, since attitudes to the body are critical to clinical skills teaching, and anatomy is the most direct method of experiencing the body encountered in medical school prior to pati...

Purpose: Measuring professional behavior is problematic not least because the concept of professionalism is difficult to define. The authors describe a measurement tool that does not rely on qualitative judgments from respondents but, nonetheless, clearly correlates with ...

One hundred and thirty-three preclinical medical students participated in 24 focus groups over the period 2007-2009 at Durham University. Focus groups were conducted to ascertain whether or not medical students found body painting anatomical structures to be an educationally beneficial learning activity. Data were analyzed using a grounded theory a...

This study aimed at evaluating how doing poetry could affect students' understanding of medical practice and at assessing the effectiveness of the evaluation method used. Qualitative research was carried out on the experiences of medical students participating in a poetry workshop, followed by some quantitative analysis. The study was conducted at...

A virtual learning environment (VLE), including access to on-line journals, was set up in support of a new medical curriculum delivered at two campuses. We evaluated student perceptions and use of the VLE including the library facilities using several qualitative and quantitative data methods and the results were triangulated. Paper copies of set t...

Introduction: Anatomy teaching has perhaps the longest history of any component of formalised medical education. In this article we briefly consider the history of dissection, but also review the neglected topic of the history of the use of living anatomy. Current debates: The current debates about the advantages and disadvantages of cadavers, p...

A Virtual Learning Environment (VLE) was set up in support of the curriculum at a new medical school, which delivers a five-year undergraduate face-to-face programme. We set out to evaluate the effectiveness of the VLE without any preconceptions, employing quantitative and qualitative methods. Some of the results of this study are reported here. A...

This study aims to explore quantitatively and qualitatively students' attitudes towards peer physical examination (PPE) and the influence of demographics on students' willingness to participate in PPE. A total of 296 first-year medical students from two consecutive cohorts at the Peninsula Medical School, UK completed the EFS questionnaire. Quantit...

Data collected from undergraduate medical students for routine purposes on a non-consented basis, but subsequently perceived as being potentially valuable for research purposes, lie in an ethical grey area. Currently, such data appear to be used routinely without explicit consideration of ethical considerations. This paper proposes a consistent fra...

Progress testing is a form of longitudinal examination which, in principle, samples at regular intervals from the complete domain of knowledge considered a requirement for medical students on completion of the undergraduate programme. Over the course of the programme students improve their scores on the test, enabling them, as well as staff, to mon...

Anatomy learning is generally seen as essential to medicine, and exposure to cadavers is generally seen as essential to anatomy learning around the world. Few voices dissenting from these propositions can be identified. This paper aims to consider arguments relating to the use of cadavers in anatomy teaching, and to describe the rationale behind th...

With opportunities for dissection and examination of sick patients decreasing, the role of peer physical examination (PPE) is increasing. This study explores students' attitudes towards PPE and the relationship between attitudes and demographics. A total of 129 first-year medical students from the Peninsula Medical School completed the Examining Fe...

Sex determination in many animals has an environmental component, particularly through temperature. In this article, it is argued that some evidence may by seen for this in humans, and it is proposed that the influence of temperature on sex determination may be a reason for the placing of testicles outside the body cavity in most male mammals.

Models have been particularly useful in developmental biology over the last 30 years. At first, underlying control mechanisms were poorly understood, but over time a wealth of detailed information became available to provide an increasingly detailed knowledge of underlying mechanisms, at levels from genes through cells to organs, organisms and popu...

Introduction: In the spirit of Scrooge and the Grinch, I describe the nasty unpalatable learning (NUL) hypothesis as a new theory of learning. This is an exercise to explore how difficult it would be to develop a new learning theory by reversing the social and altruistic tenets of most existing learning theories. THE NUL HYPOTHESIS: The NUL hypoth...

This paper describes a set of learning outcomes that clearly define the abilities of medical graduates from any of the five Scottish medical schools. The outcomes are divided into 12 domains that fit into one of three essential elements for the competent and reflective medical practitioner.

The term marks conflates the concepts of scores (raw test performance) and grades (level of performance). Neither scores nor grades represent interval scales, and therefore properly speaking arithmetic means should not be calculated during aggregation. The distributions of scores from a variety of kinds of assessment are considered, and ways of con...

The human vomeronasal organ is of interest because of its potential role in sex pheromone detection. Due to the scarcity of early human material, studies of its development have concentrated on fetal rather than embryonic stages. The availability of embryonic specimens in the Walmsley Collection has enabled us to study the development of the vomero...

The human vomeronasal organ is of interest because of its potential role in sex pheromone detection. Due to the scarcity of early human material, studies of its development have concentrated on fetal rather than embryonic stages. The availability of embryonic specimens in the Walmsley Collection has enabled us to study the development of the vomero...

The precise identification of the digits of the avian wing is of importance in evolutionary studies. If the digits are numbered two, three and four, this has been taken to suggest that birds are not descended directly from dinosaurs. If the digits are numbered one, two and three, dinosaur origins become more plausible. Studies of the development of...

That models in science are of a variety of kinds and fulfil a variety of purposes has been particularly evident over the past 30 years in the field of developmental biology. At the beginning of this period, molecular and cellular mechanisms for developmental events were largely lacking, and theoretical models were developed faute de mieux. This gav...

Spatio-temporal pattern formation is a major area of research in the field of mathematical biology. This book represents research into various aspects of spatio-temporal pattern and form, such as developmental biology, reaction-diffusion systems, and morphometrics. It also covers pattern formation in developmental biology, pattern formation in reac...

Despite the fact that development of the human embryo heart is of considerable clinical importance, there is still disagreement over the process and the timing of events. It is likely that some of the conflicting accounts may have arisen from difficulties in describing and visualising 3-dimensional structures from 2-dimensional sections. To help ov...

Despite the fact that development of the human embryo heart is of considerable clinical importance, there is still disagreement over the process and the timing of events. It is likely that some of the conflicting accounts may have arisen from difficulties in describing and visualising 3-dimensional structures from 2-dimensional sections. To help ov...

Serial transverse histological sections of the human craniovertebral junction (CVJ) of 4 normal human embryos (aged 45 to 58 d) and of a fetus (77 d) were used to create 3-dimensional computer models of the CVJ. The main components modelled included the chondrified basioccipital, atlas and axis, notochord, the vertebrobasilar complex and the spinal...

An attempt to achieve problem-based examining by the structured assessment of presentations is described. Students can choose to participate in the scheme in teams and then elect to use their awarded mark instead of part of the formal examination assessment. The element of choice of the study or examination method is seen as being a valuable elemen...

Tracings of serial histological sections from 4 human embryos at different Carnegie stages were used to create 3-dimensional (3D) computer models of the developing heart. The models were constructed using commercially available software developed for graphic design and the production of computer generated virtual reality environments. They are avai...

Tracings of serial histological sections from 4 human embryos at different Carnegie stages were used to create 3-dimensional (3D) computer models of the developing heart. The models were constructed using commercially available software developed for graphic design and the production of computer generated virtual reality environments. They are avai...

In a microassay for anchorage-independent growth in soft agar, NR6 cells form colonies in a dose-dependent manner in the presence of fibroblast growth factor (FGF). Using this assay system, the ability of thin sequential slices of embryonic chick limb bud to promote colony formation was investigated. A functional gradient of colony-promoting abilit...

The British Universities Human Embryo Database has been created by merging information from the Walmsley Collection of Human Embryos at the School of Biological and Medical Sciences, University of St Andrews and from the Boyd Collection of Human Embryos at the Department of Anatomy, University of Cambridge. The database has been made available elec...

Purpose of the study: To understand and visualise early embryonic development of the human craniovertebral junction (CVJ) to be able to interpret some of the common congenital abnormalities. Methods : Transverse histological sections of 5 human embryos aged 45 to 77 days were three-dimensionally reconstructed on computer. Structures of interest wer...