Biomedical subjects

G Franco

Publications and source records attributed to G Franco.

203 records · Page 12Linked to original sources

PubMedDate not supplied

Current controversies in occupational medicine education in Europe.

The progressive implementation of the framework directive concerning occupational health and safety into che legislation of single European Union members is leading to changes in the role of occupational health professionals. It is important that Schools of Occupational Medicine contribute to training for competence and that occupational physicians continue to provide a high quality occupational health service in a changing environment. This could lead to a new and emerging role for the occupational physician, a key figure in prevention and health protection, capable not only to act as an expert but also as an advisor able to comply with employee and employer needs. The changing role of occupational physician will require new educational models which should allow the occupational physicians to be able to cope with problems and situations which can be encountered during their professional life. This will require a better harmonisation of educational and training programmes across the European Schools of Occupational Medicine. In fact, a variety of educational and training methods are currently adopted, although there is a substantial agreement about core values, core knowledge and core skills, which characterise the speciality.

Clinical Competence↗

PubMedDate not supplied

[Role of the occupational physician in risk communication].

Risk can be defined as the probability of suffering a loss or an effect because of some event. Communication can be defined as an exchange of information. Risk communication can be defined as the exchange of information among interested parties about the nature, magnitude, significance, or control of a risk. Although effective risk communication is difficult for several reasons, depending on the source, channel and receiver, communication plays a key role in occupational and environmental medicine. Risk communication is a "two-way process" involving an interactive exchange between occupational physician and workers. How risk estimates are communicated depends on who is talking, who is listening and what is being said. One of the most important findings to emerge from risk communication research is that occupational (and environmental medicine) physicians are among the most trusted and credible sources of information on occupational (and environmental) health issues. Trust and credibility are key issues in risk communication. The ability to establish useful and constructive channels of communication depends on whether the physician is perceived as trustworthy. Empathy-caring, competence-expertise, honesty-openess and dedication-commitment are considered as the most important factors in determining trust and credibility. Effective risk communication is a complex art and skill that requires substantial knowledge, training and practice: communication structure is important, as much as content.

Communication↗

PubMedDate not supplied

[The educational process of the "competent physician": quality exigencies].

The spread of Quality concepts and process control in industries and services has meant that the educational field has become increasingly affected by the concepts of activities optimization and quality assurance. Teaching is comparable to any other service supplied in terms of program quality, quality control, quality assurance, and quality management. Teaching is a service that can be supplied through a number of phases: planning, execution and evaluation or control. This paper aims to describe an application of the Quality concept according to ISO 9000 rules in order to assure quality of teaching and training of the occupational physician. The occupational physician is requested to act according to particular competencies. This implies the need to meet specific requirements (competence-based educational goals). To assure the achievement of these goals, the implementation of a teaching Quality system must include: targeting the learning objectives (knowledge, skills and attitudes the specialist should have); planning the evaluation system (ability of the course to assure the objectives are achieved); evaluating the curriculum (relating the acquired competencies to the needs). From the integration between Quality concepts and education, new rules are arising to comply with the quality needs in teaching, where the quality of the teaching program is considered as the suitability of the program to satisfy the occupational physician competency needs.

Clinical Competence↗

PubMedDate not supplied

[Use of the Total Quality strategy in the educational process of the occupational medicine specialist].

The formative process of the Occupational physician: a Total Quality approach. There is a growing interest in applying the concepts of Total Quality Management to the fields of health care and medical education. This paper analyses the field of occupational medicine education to explore the relationships of teaching and delivering a product or a service. Issues such as defining teaching customers, addressing customer's needs, teaching processes, assessing and improving quality teaching are described. The occupational physician is requested to act according to particular competencies. This implies the need to meet specific requirements. To assure the achievement of these goals, the implementation of a teaching process must include: (i) targeting the learning objectives (knowledge, skills and attitudes the specialist should have), (ii) planning the evaluation system (ability of the course to assure the objective achievement), (iii) evaluating the curriculum (compliance of the acquired competencies to the needs).

Clinical Competence↗

PubMedDate not supplied

[Use of hypertext as information and training tools in the prevention of occupational risk].

Modern medical education is based on a variety of teaching techniques, by means of which individuals learn most effectively. The availability of the new technologies together with the diffusion of personal computers is favouring the spreading of the use of hypertexts through the World Wide Web. This contribution describes 2 hypertexts ("Human Activities and Health Risk"; "Occupation, Risk and Disease. A Problem-Oriented Hypertext-Tool to Learn Occupational Medicine") and the prototype "Virtual Hospital". Assuming that prevention of health risks is based upon their knowledge, they have been created with the aim of providing users with problem-oriented tools, whose retorical aspects (content, information organization, user interface) are analysed. The "Human Activities and Health Risk" deals with the description of working activities and allows user to recognize health risks. The "Occupation, Risk and Disease. A Problem-Oriented Hypertext-Tool to Learn Occupational Medicine" embodies a case report containing the clustered information about the patient and the library including educational material (risk factors, symptoms and signs, organ system diseases, jobs, occupational risk factors, environment related diseases. The "Virtual Hospital" has been conceived assuming that an appropriate information can change workers' behaviour in hospital, where health risks can be often underevaluated. It consists of a variety of structured and unstructured information, which can be browsed by users, allowing the discovery of links and providing the awareness of the semantic relationship between related information elements (including environment, instruments, drugs, job analysis, situations at risk for health, preventive means). The "Virtual Hospital" aims making the understanding of the working situations at risk easier and more interesting, stimulating the awareness of the relationship between jobs and risks.

Computer-Assisted Instruction↗