Abstract
This paper provides and applies a conceptual framework and a list of guiding principles for evaluation of generalist education programs. Programs are systematic efforts to achieve specified objectives. Evaluations gather data in order to improve or appraise programs and have a continuum of purposes and methods. Descriptive evaluations characterize the structures, processes, and outcomes of programs; research evaluations definitively assess the effectiveness of a program in terms of outcomes. Intermediate outcomes are changes in knowledge, attitudes, and skills of program participants; conclusive outcomes reflect the quality of performance of graduates in actual clinical situations. Outcomes are affected by inputs—the qualities of students entering the program. Guiding principles of program evaluation ensure that data gathered are useful. The authors illustrate the guiding principles with an actual pilot study that determined that expert pediatricians, general internists, and family practitioners could agree on key generalist competencies and that explores evaluation design based on these competencies. Finally, they consider the implications of undertaking generalist education evaluation.
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With the Generalist Program Evaluation Working Group:WILLIAM BITHONEY, MD. LINDA BLANK, EVANCHARNEY, MD. JACKENDE. MD, DONA L. HARRIS. PHD. PAUL MCCARTHY, MD. STEVENP. SHELOV, MD. DAVIDSWEE, MD
Working group members are from the Department of Medicine in Boston’s Children’s Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts (WB); the American Board of Internal Medicine, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (LB); the Department of Pediatrics, University of Massachusetts Medical School, Worcester, Massachusetts (EC); the Division of General Internal Medicine, University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (JE); Michigan State University Kalamazoo Center for Medical Studies, Family Medicine, Kalamazoo, Michigan (DLH); the Department of Pediatrics, Yale University School of Medicine, New Haven, Connecticut (PMcC); the Department of Pediatrics, Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Bronx, New York (SPS); and the Department of Family Medicine, UMDNJ-Robert Wood Johnson Medical School, New Brunswick, New Jersey (DS).
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Rubenstein, L.V., Fink, A., Gelberg, L. et al. Evaluating generalist education programs. J Gen Intern Med 9 (Suppl 1), S64–S72 (1994). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02598120
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02598120