Medical Education Research on Patient Outcomes: Has Anything Changed After Two Decades?

One of the most important and ultimate aims of medical education is to improve patient outcomes. Therefore, one of the focuses of medical education research should be measuring the impact of educational interventions on patients.

However, a survey of medical education research published in 2001 showed that “patient-centered outcomes were evaluated in fewer than one percent of studies”. Doesn’t it constitute only a tiny part of medical education research?

You may think it was 20 years ago. In this period, evaluating patient-centered outcomes has been encouraged by many people and institutions. The rates should be significantly higher after two decades.

A group of researchers from the USA wondered how it changed. To shed light on this, they conducted a replication study.

The flamingo is excited to present the results.

Years and years ago, researchers evaluated the articles published in four major medical education journals between 1996 and 1998. They found that the research literature had focused largely on learner performance and learner satisfaction. These things are about the process. What about patient-centered outcomes? It was just 0.7%.

The researchers who replicated this study evaluated the articles from the same journals published between 2014 and 2016. They found that satisfaction is the most common outcome, which is 40.2%. It increased from 34.1%. The rate of patient-centered outcomes was 0.7% in the previous study. The new study showed that it is 2.1% after two decades. This increase is not significant. It seems almost nothing has changed after all these years, everything is stable despite all efforts and encouragements.

Why? Is it because medical education researchers are lazy and irresponsible?

Of course not, a phenomenon could not be explained only by blaming a group of people. Contextual factors are important as always.

There are numerous and daunting challenges that limit researchers’ ability. The models for causality relationship between educational interventions and clinical outcomes are really complex and require large datasets that include both clinical and educational data. The dissociation between health services and education is an important systemic problem.

Moreover, patient-centered outcome research requires contribution from a team of diverse researchers. However, funding and resources allocated for this kind of complex research are not at a high level.

Although the conditions are not perfect, we, medical education researchers, should always strive for conducting studies that focus on patient-centered outcomes. Because this is one of the most important missions of ours. We are responsible to the public.

If you want to read more, you can find the link to the article at the description of the video: https://youtu.be/Ld4rzsOo7yc

See you and adios para amigos. And also, don’t forget the flamingo.

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