ORIGINAL ARTICLE
Exposure or expert? Setting standards for postgraduate education through a Delphi technique
1 Manchester Royal Infirmary, Manchester, UK
2 Hope Hospital, Salford, Manchester, UK
3 Stepping Hill Hospital, Stockport, UK
4 Educational Advisor to the Faculty of Accident and Emergency Medicine
Correspondence to:
Correspondence to:
Dr S Carley
Consultant in Emergency Medicine, Department of Emergency Medicine, Manchester Royal Infirmary, Oxford Road, Manchester M13 9WL, UK; simon.carley{at}cmmc.nhs.uk
Objectives: The aim of this study was to determine if a syllabus of upper limb anatomy for emergency clinicians composed by an expert panel reflected clinical practice as experienced by those at whom the syllabus would be directed.
Methods: A three round Delphi study was performed using an expert group. We compared this with a measure of the exposure to anatomical concepts in the day to day practice of trainees in emergency medicine.
Results: In total, 404 separate anatomical facts relating to the upper limb were reviewed by both groups. There was poor agreement (
= 0.348) between the expert group and the trainees.
Conclusion: We have shown disparity between what an expert group believes trainees should know and what trainees are actually exposed to in clinical practice. We believe this demonstrates that curriculum development must strike a balance between important (expert) and common (exposure) information. We have shown how an expert:exposure matrix may be used to inform curriculum development.
Abbreviations: EM, emergency medicine; SpR, specialist registrar
Keywords: Curricula; Delphi; examination; expert; faculty
Relevant Article
CiteULike 
Complore 
Connotea 
Del.icio.us 
Digg 
Reddit 
Technorati What's this?
Emerg. Med. J. 2006 23: 665.
- Full Text
- Full Text (PDF)
- Submit a response
- Alert me when this article is cited
- Alert me when eLetters are posted
- Alert me if a correction is posted
Services
- Email this link to a friend
- Similar articles in this journal
- Similar articles in PubMed
- Add article to my folders
- Download to citation manager
- Request Permissions
Citing Articles
Google Scholar
PubMed
Topic Collections
Bookmark with
Register for free content
The full back archive is now available for all BMJ Journals. Institutional subscribers may access the entire archive as part of their subscription. Personal subscribers will also have access to all content when logged in. Non-subscribers who register have free access to all articles published before 2006 right back to volume 1 issue 1. Register here to access the free archive of all BMJ Journals.
Don't forget to sign up for content alerts so you keep up to date with all the articles as they are published.
