Notes from the Editor: MedEdPORTAL Reviewers [Top of Page]

MedEdPORTAL is fortunate to have a pool of 800 reviewers from a variety of specialty areas. The vast majority of these reviewers are full-time faculty at US and Canadian medical schools. MedEdPORTAL receives reviewer nominations from a variety of sources including current reviewers, professional societies, associate editors, and editorial board members. Reviewers are asked to submit a CV and complete an online application that asks a variety of questions regarding areas of expertise, teaching history, reviewing history, and teaching awards.

Before performing their first review all reviewers are asked to participate in a peer review tutorial designed specifically for MedEdPORTAL. This tutorial describes the unique nature of the MedEdPORTAL peer review process and includes a comprehensive explanation of the peer review form that reviewers will use to assess submissions. Reviewer names are not released to authors.

To view past excerpts, please visit: Notes from the Editor.

AAMC Assesses the State of Simulation Usage [Top of Page]

To address the need for an "epidemiology" of simulation, the Association of American Medical Colleges worked in cooperation with the Society for Simulation in Healthcare (SSH), the Association of Standardized Patient Educators (ASPE), and the American Association of Colleges of Nursing (AACN) to create an inventory of simulation activities at AAMC-member institutions.

The inventory's specific objectives are to determine which of its member institutions have ongoing simulation activities, how long and to what extent schools been using simulation, and how simulation is being used. The AAMC hopes that the results will help the educational community define the prevalence of simulation, share information about other institutions' activities, and support research on simulation. The survey will be disseminated in early 2010 to medical schools and teaching hospitals with hopes of reporting preliminary findings in the fall.

Executive committee members were: Mary Cantrell, Michael DeVita, and Kristina Stillsmoking for SSH, Wendy Gammon, Gayle Gliva-McConvey, and Tamara Owens for ASPE, Julie Anderson for AACN, and Grace Huang, Morgan Passiment, Robby Reynolds, Heather Sacks, and Michael Saleh for AAMC. The questionnaire is expected to be completed by a staff member at an institution's simulation center or the person at the institution responsible for simulation education.

For more information about the Simulation project, contact Bridgette Waldron at bwaldron@aamc.org.

Virtual Patients & E-learning in Medical Education [Top of Page]

The 2nd International Conference on Virtual Patients & MedBiquitous Annual Conference is set to take place on April 26th to 28th in London, UK.

This exciting event gives teachers, learning technologists and students the chance to learn about teaching tools like virtual patients and simulations, and how Web 2.0 tools can be used effectively when teaching medical and healthcare students. A variety of session formats maximize learning while offering exposure to new ideas and active discussion. Learn More>>>

Did You Know... [Top of Page]

Authors can generate usage reports? In addition to citing a publication a published author is also able to generate usage reports that lists all of the users who have viewed and/or accessed their published resource. The usage reports include the names, institution name, country and email address of each user who has viewed their publication in MedEdPORTAL. Based on the MedEdPORTAL privacy policy, authors are allowed to contact the users who accessed their resource in MedEdPORTAL and ask them if and how they utilized their resource at their respective institutions. To see a sample report and for more information, please visit: Tracking Usage.