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The importance of clinical outcomes in medical education research
Author(s) -
Chen Frederick M,
Burstin Helen,
Huntington Jane
Publication year - 2005
Publication title -
medical education
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.776
H-Index - 138
eISSN - 1365-2923
pISSN - 0308-0110
DOI - 10.1111/j.1365-2929.2005.02117.x
Subject(s) - citation , library science , medicine , psychology , computer science
In the 1980s, doctors treated patients with antiarrhythmic medications to suppress premature ventricular depolarisations, thereby preventing life-threatening arrhythmias – until the Cardiac Arrhythmia Suppression Trial (CAST) found that the use of those medications prevented the arrhythmias, but killed the patients in the process! CAST taught us the important difference between clinical outcomes that matter (death) and intermediate outcomes that do not (ventricular depolarisations). Twenty years later, an emphasis on outcomes research is bringing this perspective to medical education. As a recent JAMA article posed, If medicine has a high threshold for evidence of clinical care, why is there no corresponding threshold for educational effectiveness? 2