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Kieran Walsh

Publications and source records attributed to Kieran Walsh.

15 recordsLinked to original sources
PubMed2006

You couldn't make it up. Or could you?

Revalidation is the new method by which doctors in the UK will stay on the medical register. Most doctors will take the appraisal route to revalidation--that is, they will undergo annual appraisals and five successful appraisals will result in revalidation. So there is a lot riding on appraisal. But it relies almost completely on trust. And in a situation that is based on absolute trust there are endless opportunities for that trust to be broken. Doctors will be encouraged to look at how they are doing as a doctor in terms of the General Medical Council's characteristics of a good doctor-such as providing good clinical care and maintaining good relationships with patients. But doctors can fabricate evidence to show that they work to these standards. There is anecdotal evidence that this happens and also published evidence that medical students cheat and that such cheating may predict dishonesty later on. One study from outside medicine showed that some learners doing a postgraduate diploma in education admitted to cheating. The current system of appraisal and revalidation is currently under review in light of the Shipman inquiry and many doctors are scared that appraisal may be a stepping stone towards assessment. A guaranteed way of speeding up the drive towards introducing assessment is not taking appraisal seriously.

Deception↗
PubMed2005

Diva.

We live in a celebrity-obsessed world and our medical students are no more immune to the glamour of celebrity than anyone else. When teaching medical students about a certain medical illness I used to tell them about a celebrity who suffers from this illness. I did this to get their attention and to stimulate their interest but even though the celebrity's information was already in the public domain I started to feel increasingly uncomfortable about doing this. Celebrities are famous but they have a right to a private life as much as everybody else. I began to feel that I was invading the celebrity's privacy by discussing his illness in a lecture hall. I could have asked for his consent to our discussing his confidential medical information but this would probably have been impracticable and in any case such consent would have been invalid as he would not know in advance what the discussion would be about. I could not argue that discussing his illness was overwhelmingly in the public interest or that I could not make my teaching points in any other way. I may have considered it reasonable to discuss the information but that is no guarantee that he would have felt the same way. I think that using famous people's illnesses to make a point does them no good and can do them harm: it is also breaches their right to have a private life.

Adult↗
PubMed2005

Assessment.

Explore the source record for details and available documents.

Clinical Competence↗
PubMed2002

Stroke care: how do we measure quality?

The purpose of this paper is to review the methods used to measure quality of stroke care. Relevant articles were searched for on Medline using the following key words: stroke, quality, outcome of care, process of care, structure of care. Articles that examined how to measure the quality of stroke care and that examined difficulties in the measurement of care outcomes, processes, and structures were selected. Selected articles were reviewed to summarise methods used to measure quality of stroke care and the primary outcome measures of the studies were extracted. Conclusions were drawn about the best ways to measure the quality of stroke care. Practical problems in using outcome measures to monitor quality of care include the consequences of case mix and difficulties in risk adjustment. Clinicians may use process measures to understand differences in outcome. Once a process of care has been linked to an outcome measure, this care process should be measured. The national sentinel audit for stroke is an audit tool used to examine the quality of the processes of stroke care.

Humans↗