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Review of Guidebook for Clerkship Directors, Third Edition • Guidebook for Clerkship Directors, Third Edition

Joseph B. Layde, M.D., J.D.

The Alliance for Clinical Education is composed of members of educational bodies in each of seven core disciplines, with representation in our field from the Association of Directors of Medical Student Education in Psychiatry (ADMSEP). The Alliance for Clinical Education (ACE) encourages educational scholarship among medical student clerkship directors in fields across medicine. It created the Handbook for Clerkship Directors, published by the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) in 1995, and a second edition, the Guidebook for Clerkship Directors, published by AAMC in 2000. The ACE has now self-published the Guidebook for Clerkship Directors, Third Edition, with Ruth-Marie E. Fincher, M.D., as Editor-in-Chief. Dr. Fincher is Professor of Medicine and Vice Dean for Academic Affairs at the Medical College of Georgia School of Medicine.

For this Third Edition of the Guidebook, the Alliance for Clinical Education has commendably decided on a distribution scheme designed to ensure easy access to the book’s material, by making the entire book available free online at its Web site at http://www.allianceforclinicaleducation.org/guidebook.htm. A printed version of the guidebook is also available at modest cost. The lengthy Guidebook includes a wealth of practical information on topics of interest to psychiatry clerkship directors and to psychiatry clinical educators in general, with chapter titles ranging from "The Role of the Clerkship Director" through "Working with Students with Difficulties: Academic and Nonacademic."

The Guidebook’s 16 chapters vary considerably in their editorial polish, but the placement of helpful tables and appendices at the end of most of the chapters provides invaluable guidance to the novice clerkship director on the details of running a clerkship. For instance, detailed information on recommended PDA (personal digital assistant) programs appears at the end of Chapter 4, "Technology in Clerkship Education," and a model "Memorandum of Agreement Between Medical School and Site" is included at the end of the Chapter 9, "Directing a Clerkship Over Geographically Separated Sites."

New clerkship directors are not the only audience for this book. Even seasoned psychiatry educators will benefit from chapters on "Evaluation of the Clerkship: Clinical Teachers and Program," "Faculty Development," and new chapters on "The Clerkship Director and the Accreditation Process" and "The Clerkship Orientation." This edition also includes new chapters of special interest to early career academic psychiatrists: "Career Development for Medical Student Clinical Educators," "Understanding, Navigating, and Leveraging Academic Medicine" (which is organized, interestingly, according to Dante’s nine circles of hell), and "Educational Scholarship"—as well as a new chapter on "Redefining the Role of Clerkship Administrators."

The extensive Chapter 6 of the Guidebook, "Evaluation and Grading of Students," includes several sections which stand out as models of concise, useful educational writing: Section 11—"Writing Multiple-choice Questions," written by the Editor-in-Chief, Ruth-Marie E. Fincher, M.D.; Section 14—"Legal Aspects of Failing Grades," written by Thomas Jamieson, M.D., J.D., Paul Hemmer, M.D., M.P.H., and Louis Pangaro, M.D.; and Section 15—"Feedback," written by Andrew Albritton, M.D. and Lisa E. Leggio, M.D. At its best, as in these sections, the Guidebook for Clerkship Directors, Third Edition provides expert guidance on managing the sometimes-tricky task of providing medical students the best and fairest clinical experience possible.

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