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| EDITORIAL |
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| Year : 2022 | Volume
: 35
| Issue : 2 | Page : 39-40 |
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Co-Editors' Notes
Danette McKinley1, Payal Bansal2, Michael Glasser3
1 National Conference of Bar Examiners, Madison, WI, USA
2 Maharashtra University of Health Sciences, Nashik, Maharashtra, India
3 University of Illinois, Rockford, IL, USA
| Date of Submission | 29-Dec-2022 |
| Date of Acceptance | 29-Dec-2022 |
| Date of Web Publication | 12-Jan-2023 |
Correspondence Address:
Danette McKinley
National Conference of Bar Examiners, Madison, WI
USA
 Source of Support: None, Conflict of Interest: None  | Check |
DOI: 10.4103/efh.efh_391_22
How to cite this article:
McKinley D, Bansal P, Glasser M. Co-Editors' Notes. Educ Health 2022;35:39-40 |
We present this issue of Education for Health with content that includes Original Research, General Paper, Practical Advice, a Commentary, and Letters to the Editors from around the World (see submission requirements for each at https://www.educationforhealth.net/contributors.asp#editorial). In this issue, there are contributions from Egypt, India, Japan, and collaborations between authors in Sweden and Rwanda, as well as the United States and Turkey. Articles highlight the ongoing effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. Access to care and workforce shortages continue to challenge health systems internationally. Regardless of resources, countries struggle with various aspects of what has become the next normal.
For some time, several issues regarding health inequities have been made apparent. During the COVID-19 pandemic, there were considerable discrepancies related to underrepresented minorities and those with less financial capital. In their article, titled “Medical student anxiety and depression in the COVID-19 era: Unique needs of underrepresented students,” the authors showed a view of the COVID-19 impact that is rarely considered in the literature. They examined whether mental health and anxiety affected groups of medical students differently. They found that while the pandemic increased the generalized anxiety and depression in most health professions students, underrepresented minority students exhibited higher levels of anxiety and depression. Underrepresented minorities face challenges, and crises like the COVID-19 pandemic introduce additional challenges, that result in increased risk for anxiety and depression. The authors recommend the need for solutions to alleviate the burden on these health professions students.
An analysis employing item response theory may seem to be outside our journal's scope. The general article by LaRochelle et al. details an innovative use of differential item functioning (DIF). They used this statistical technique to compare the performance of instruments measuring students' social anxiety and communication apprehension. Student responses were compared based on race/ethnicity. Study findings provided validity evidence for the measures as well as showed patterns of responses that differed by race. While all groups scored above the mean, indicating that all students positively endorsed the items, the DIF analyses showed some important differences in patterns of responses by race. They recommended that the pattern of responses could be useful to revise the measures. More importantly, though, the patterns could indicate potential differences in educational needs, at least among pharmacy students.
Training of postgraduate students involves a tension between the provision of patient care and educational opportunities. To examine the factors that facilitate and hinder the functioning of settings for clinical training, Fortuna et al. studied the extent to which there was support for the medical (clinical) directors responsible for postgraduate training. Their article provides what was promised, practical advice, on how to accomplish these goals. Among the recommendations the educators provide are: valuing the time that medical directors spend on planning and coordinating training; scheduling residents to provide patients with improved access; and aligning staff with patient-centered care goals.
In their commentary titled “The “New Normal” for Medical Education During and Post COVID-19,” a group of authors from Egypt caution us to consider what we learned from education changes that occurred during and after the pandemic. Online teaching and learning were not new during the pandemic though the scale at which online learning was offered changed. What did we learn about the needs of trainers and learners? How can we best plan to communicate and implement the positive changes made and reduce identified barriers? Their call for the international community to collaborate resonates strongly as we develop best practices for the next normal.
Letters to the Editor are from India, Japan, Rwanda, and Sweden. They provide information on education changes during and after the pandemic in Japan, the effectiveness of reversing the order to study and instruction (”flipped classroom”), community-based education and care in Rwanda, and the effectiveness of mapping test questions to course content (blueprinting) in biochemistry.
We believe that these articles meet the goals of the journal to disseminate work about health professions education that leads to improved health and health-care delivery. Please let us know whether these articles help your educational and scholarly efforts.
We want to remind our readers, authors, and reviewers of the scope of the journal. Education for Health is dedicated to the dissemination of work consistent with the organization's mission and objectives in international health. It publishes original contributions of interest to health and clinical practitioners, educators, policymakers, administrators, and learners in the health professions. Specifically, this focus is on global models of health system integration and health professions education that lead to improved health and health-care delivery. We welcome your submissions and encourage authors to serve as reviewers. Engaging our audience in the peer review process increases the availability of peer reviewers and can speed up the review process. Please consider being a reviewer for the journal.
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