By Jonathan Sherbino (@sherbino)
“Being a [scholarly] teacher requires more than being an expert in a content area; it also requires familiarity, use, and perhaps production of educational evidence and theory.
Do you know about the BEME – Best Evidence in Medical Education – Collaboration?
BEME is an international collaboration of individuals and organizations committed to the development of evidence informed education in the health professions. The board includes names that you are likely familiar with Dauphinee, Gruppen, Harden, and Wilkinson. The goal of the BEME Collaboration is “to provide and make available the latest findings from scientifically-grounded educational research” in order to inform policy that helps student learning and effectiveness.”
BEME reviews are often the starting point for any literature review I conduct, either as part of a scholarly project or to answer a question that has come up in my education practice. BEME reviews are the parallel universe to Cochrane Reviews which inform my clinical practice.
I love this BEME statement…
“BEME rejects the legacy of medical education in which decisions have been made based on pseudoscience, anecdotes, and flawed comparison groups rather than empirical evidence. The BEME approach contends that in no other scientific field are personal experiences relied on to make policy choices, and in no other field is the research base so limited.”
Now, that’s a call to action!
——–
- Van Der Vleuten CPM, DHJM Dolmans, A Scherpbier. 2000. The need for evidence in education. Medical Teacher. 22(3): 246-250.
