Monday, March 30, 2015

Frequently asked questions for the BMJ Medical Elective

Could I have more information as to how to go about applying for this opportunity? This doesn't appear to be mentioned in the information provided here: http://promotions.bmj.com/jnl/bmj-case-reports-student-electives-2/

As far as a formal application is concerned we do not require any formal application beyond an email from our side although we are ready to sign any official documents necessary for VISA processing etc. Medical Students and interns should make sure to share with us a permission letter granting them leave from their parent institution during their proposed time of elective visit to our institute where they shall engage with our patients.

What is the name, physical and postal address of the hospital we will be attending?

Department of Medicine,
Kamineni Institute of Medical Sciences,
Narketpally,  Near Hyderabad,Telangana
Email:rakesh7biswas@gmail.com


Can we get an idea about the cost of accommodation, meals and local travel? 


We shall be introducing you to our students here (on email) as they can answer some more specific queries about the cost of food, local travel and accommodation although our guess is that it will be less than the approximate 10-20$ per day mentioned in the website here: http://promotions.bmj.com/jnl/bmj-case-reports-student-electives-2/

Is this more of an online learning program? Can you share links to a workflow or curriculum? 

Ours is not just an online but a blended (offline-online) learning program and most of your day will be spent in the wards interacting with the patients collecting data for your case study and later evenings and nights would be spent in uploading and discussing them online. Here's http://userdrivenhealthcare.blogspot.in/2013/07/workflow-for-medical-learning-elective.html more detail about our workflow. 

The advantage that you will have over our medical students here is that you can focus solely on our medicine patients 24x7 and not get bogged down by the demands of other subjects in the curriculum. :-)

Here's some past lecture http://www.pitt.edu/~super1/lecture/lec50661/001.htm about the data collection and here's http://www.pitt.edu/~super1/lecture/lec53671/002.htm more about how to write your publishable case-report (which is the intended outcome of your entire learning experience and naturally as you would be working with many cases each day we would expect a sizable number of write ups around those cases from you). :-) 

We encourage our students to first record their cases in a raw format in a blog after taking their informed consent in a form downloadable herehttp://www.udhc.co.in/STATICS/docs/udhc-bengali.pdfhttp://www.udhc.co.in/STATICS/docs/udhc-hindi.pdfhttp://www.udhc.co.in/STATICS/docs/udhc-english.pdf  (links to the consent form in Bengali, Hindi, English) other than collecting their consent in the BMJ format here: http://authors.bmj.com/submitting-your-paper/patient-consent-and-confidentiality/

More here: http://userdrivenhealthcare.blogspot.in/2016/08/guidelines-for-online-health-record.html about how to prepare the case initially in the raw format and the steps to convert it into a published case-report. 

More links below showing the web based log books of our recent BMJ elective students :

http://classworkdecjan.blogspot.in/2016/12/about.html


http://bmjcaselogvivek.blogspot.in


Below are links to some of the BMJ case reports published by our elective students:


http://casereports.bmj.com/content/2018/bcr-2018-224166.full?keytype=ref&ijkey=JqzW1SExmrndyVO


https://casereports.bmj.com/content/12/3/e227118.full


https://casereports.bmj.com/content/2016/bcr-2015-211127.full?keytype=ref&ijkey=GrkuudGK4zzuAwk



-The specific things you will require me to be learning?

Principles of a systems approach to health-care through

a) clinical data capture (Bedside Clinical methods as well as Imaging and Labs) followed by sharing the de-identified raw data as a real time case report toward further clinical data processing (see "b" below)



b) clinical data processing through an online discussion with our web based network of health professionals in a "global elective learning" group.

and

c) clinical outputs to our primary beneficiaries of medical-education (also known as patients). 


The outputs (in terms of patient management) will be chiefly provided by the supervisor who often has to tailor them to match available resources (as the patients are often from disadvantaged communities) and the student is expected to observe, experience and reflect upon the consequences and/or causation of health disadvantage and share them with our team in the form of written text in our online forum.

We sincerely believe that "clinical Informatics" is all about shared decision making through a robust information communication framework between our health professional colleagues and patients and all other stakeholders in healthcare.

-Supervision arrangements, including how you will supervise me (observation, allocation to other supervisors, discussion etc), and how you will assess my performance.


Ours is a Blended learning program and other than the face to face interactions and observations in the hospital and community settings, the student will be formatively assessed as well as supervised through our online community where all our cases are discussed regularly (and an online learning-portfolio for the student can be generated from the student's learning interactions). The student will be encouraged to share his/her searches, reflections and thoughts around each case with a larger community so that his/her inputs can actually benefit the patient in terms of generating interest and quality care from all those involved with the patient (offline and online).

-Requirements of me (pre - placement preparation, documents and equipment you require me to bring etc)


As this is a blended learning program the student must have a laptop with an internet connection to enable him/her to communicate with our network. The student's own pre-placement research and thoughts will be discussed and answered in advance by the supervisor to ensure a better mental preparation for the course. The students institutional identity card and an official permission letter from the institute will be sufficient for any verification that may be necessary.