AJHPE CPD.indd Dear CPD client, We wish to take this opportunity to thank you for your continued support through the completion of our online CPD questionnaires as well as to share some exciting news with you. HMPG’s journal CPD questionnaires will be moving to the Medical Practice Consulting (MPC) CPD platform (www.mpconsulting.co.za) as part of a strategy to consolidate all South African Medical Association (SAMA) members’ CPD certifi cates and history. All SAMA CPD certifi cates (whether for annual conferences, branch meetings or workshops) are already available online on the MPC CPD platform and moving all active HMPG online CPD questionnaires to the same platform will mean that all SAMA member CPD certifi cates will be issued in one central, convenient location – resulting in less admin for our CPD clients. An additional benefi t is that the MPC CPD manager can complete your IAR form on your behalf (no more countless hours of reconciling CPD records before a compliance audit) and submit your CPD history to the HPCSA once you have approved it and are happy with the results. All that is required of you, when you are ready, is to click a single button to submit your CPD Activity Record to the HPCSA. Nothing will, of course, ever be submitted without your prior approval and consent. The MPC system also adds additional functionality to the CPD questionnaires and the system has been set up to make the process as easy to follow as possible. The South African Medical Association (SAMA) board has concluded that the CPD services associated with the South African Medical Journal (incorporating Continuing Medical Education) and the South African Journal of Bioethics and Law will only be off ered to registered and fully paid-up SAMA members, as per the SAMA member benefi t schedule; therefore, you will be required to register a profi le on the MPC CPD system (if you do not already have one – if you already have one, login as usual) and to supply your SAMA membership number. You will be required to do this only once. Your membership will be validated in real-time and you will be able to access the journal CPD questionnaires. This once-off registration should not take more than 2 minutes and you will be on your way to completing the CPD questionnaires. Below are some questions and answers that will assist you in getting started. When will the CPD questionnaires move to MPC? All HMPG-issued journal CPD questionnaires will move to the MPC CPD platform from February 2014 onwards. This will include all prior CPD questionnaires that are still active. What website do I access to complete the HMPG questionnaires? www.mpconsulting.co.za Who is MPC? Medical Practice Consulting (MPC) is a group company of SAMA. MPC has historically hosted CPD at SAMA’s annual conferences, issued all SAMA member CPD certifi cates and has hosted SAMA’s online branch elections. By moving active HMPG journal CPD questionnaires to the MPC system, SAMA members will have all their CPD certifi cates in one central, convenient location. MPC has also been supplying the Foundation for Professional Development distance learning courses online for the last 2 years and has hosted some of the largest online training initiatives in the South African healthcare industry. What do I need to register a pro� le on the MPC CPD system? MPC does not retain any confi dential information on their database, so you will not be requested to share your telephone number, practice or home address. All that is required for registration is your name, surname, specialty, SAMA membership number and HPCSA number (which is included on your CPD certifi cate to comply with HPCSA CPD requirements). How long will registration take? Completing registration should take no longer than 2 minutes – please remember to have your HPCSA (MP Number) and SAMA membership number at hand. What about my historic CPD certi� cates on the www.cpdjournals.co.za website? If you register on the MPC CPD platform with the same email address as you were using on the www.cpdjournals.co.za website, MPC will import all your CPD certifi cates for the last 36 months into your MPC CPD manager for you. Alternatively you can still login to www.cpdjournals.co.za and save any CPD certifi cates that are still valid (remember that CEUs have a 24-month shelf life and expire after 24 months). What happens if I run into technical di� culties? Simply complete an online contact form and MPC will assist you with your technical problem. If your SAMA number for some reason does not match that in the SAMA membership database, MPC will assist with rectifying the problem. MPC’s contact details are available online: www.mpconsulting.co.za/contact-us Sincerely, Gert Steyn CEO, Health and Medical Publishing Group (HMPG) CPD NOTIFICATION CPD Questionnaire A maximum of 3 CEUs will be awarded per correctly completed test. 176 October 2014, Vol.6, No. 2 AJHPE Effective in 2014, the CPD programme for AJHPE will be administered by Medical Practice Consulting: CPD questionnaires must be completed online at www.mpconsulting.co.za After submission you can check the answers and print your certificate. Questions may be answered up to 6 months after publication of each issue. Accreditation number: MDB001/016/01/2014 (Clinical) October 2014 True (A) or false (B): Building on Tinto’s model of engagement and persistence: Experiences from the Umthombo Youth Development Foundation Scholarship Scheme 1. Rural-origin students are more likely than urban-origin students to work in rural areas once they have completed their studies at an institution of higher learning in South Africa. 2. Academic and peer mentoring programmes and holiday work experiences may contribute to the academic success of rural-origin students training to become healthcare professionals in South Africa. Integrating research into teaching: Needs assessment for staff development 3. Institutions of higher learning, such as universities, should ensure that the teaching duties and research activities of academic staff remain clearly segregated so that the quality of their teaching is not adversely affected. 4. The scholarship of teaching requires active involvement of academic teaching staff, with research into teaching. Factors that influence MSc (Med) (Pharmacy) completion rates at the Medunsa Campus of the University of Limpopo, South Africa 5. Completion of postgraduate studies is largely determined by the availability of adequate financial resources, and is less likely to be influenced by frequency and quality of communication between the supervisor and the student. 6. Good time management is one of the most important factors contributing to the successful outcome of postgraduate studies. Access, pass, throughput and drop-out rates: Review of a problem-based learning BPharm curriculum at a previously disadvantaged university in South Africa 7. Selection processes for health sciences training programmes in South Africa should largely focus on the academic achievements of applicants. 8. Adjustment to university life is a complex process and may contribute to the increased attrition of undergraduate students in the first two years of study. Recommendations for the establishment of a clinical simulation unit to train South African medical students 9. Saturation of the academic clinical teaching platform in South Africa is driving a move towards the increased use of simulation-based training to complement patient-based learning experiences in South African health sciences faculties. 10. Simulation-based training should be limited in undergraduate clinical training programmes because it encourages students to perform potentially dangerous procedures on patients without recognising the need for appropriate supervision. Assessment of the education environment of senior medical students at the University of the Free State, Bloemfontein, South Africa 11. The Dundee Ready Educational Environment Measure (DREEM) is a useful tool for assessing the quality of the educational environment in health sciences training programmes. 12. There are no data to support the idea that the educational environment, in a programme or course, influences the effectiveness and academic success of students in medical training programmes. Making use of an existing questionnaire to measure patient-centred attitudes in undergraduate medical students: A case study 13. Undergraduate students become more empathetic towards patients as they reach the more senior years of medical training programmes. 14. Questionnaires and surveys used to measure student attributes and/or opinions are likely to perform similarly in all countries and validation studies are not needed prior to using such instruments in a local setting. Medical students’ clerkship experiences and self-perceived competence in clinical skills 15. Most medical students, by the time they graduate, are not able to safely operate a basic defibrillator as part of advanced life support. 16. Students have a very good idea of their clinical skills and so self- reporting is an accurate way of determining their clinical competence. An educational programme for error awareness in acute trauma for junior doctors 17. Cases presented at morbidity and mortality meetings can be very useful when teaching junior doctors about error awareness in clinical practice. 18. The greatest source of error in clinical practice is assessment failure (wrong diagnosis). A qualitative survey of top-achieving undergraduate medical students’ perspectives of medical education: An Iranian exploration 19. Undergraduate medical students are not able to provide feedback about the relevance and appropriateness of medical curricula. 20. Teacher-centred, discipline-based medical curricula are still being used in some parts of the world despite a global move to integrated, student- centred programmes.