Does walking improve diagnosis of skin conditions at varying levels of medical expertise?
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Does walking improve diagnosis of skin conditions at varying levels of medical expertise? Malgorzata E. Kaminska1,2 · Remy M. J. P. Rikers3 Received: 18 November 2019 / Accepted: 8 September 2020 © Springer Nature B.V. 2020
Abstract The use of walking workstations in educational and work settings has been shown to improve cognitive abilities. At the same time, it has been repeatedly shown that medical residents around the world do not meet exercise guidelines, mainly due to a scarcity of available free time. Our study investigates the boundaries of the previously observed phenomenon of improved cognitive performance with physical activity using materials that represent real life tasks. Participants had different level of expertise and involved second year psychology students, medical students, and family medicine residents. We examined the effect of being physically inactive (i.e., sitting) or active (i.e., walking) while diagnosing multiple complex presentations of four skin conditions. We assumed that being physically active, irrespective of the level of expertise, will bolster diagnostic performance. Our findings show, however, that being physically active does not change the performance level of participants with different levels of medical expertise. Implications for medical education and suggestions for further research will be discussed. Keywords Expertise development · Visual diagnosis · Embodied cognition · Exercise · Medical education · Clinical reasoning
Introduction As news stories on how sitting is the new smoking have increased 12-fold from 2012 to 2016 (Chau et al. 2018), so has the popularity of active workstations. These workstations consist of a desk at which a worker can stand, cycle, or walk while performing tasks which would normally be performed sitting at a desk. At the same time, the assumption that moderate exercise is needed to see health benefits is undergoing a transformation as the * Malgorzata E. Kaminska [email protected] 1
Northern Medical Program, University of Northern British Columbia, 3333 University Way, Prince George, BC V2N 4Z9, Canada
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Department of Family Practice, University of British Columbia, 317‑2194 Health Sciences Mall, Vancouver, BC V6T 1Z3, Canada
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Roosevelt Center for Excellence in Education, University College Roosevelt, Utrecht University, P.O. Box 94, 4330 AB Middleburg, The Netherlands
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evidence for the benefits of simply light physical activity continues to grow. In a recent study, researchers from the American Cancer Society determined that even replacing a mere 30 min per day of sitting with low levels of physical activity leads to a 14% reduction in the mortality risk (Rees-Punia et al. 2019). Yet, studies from various countries indicate that anywhere between 70 and 100% of residents are not meeting exercise guidelines, with scarcity of available free time being cited as a main reason for their lack of physical activity (Gupta and Fan 2009; Reshidi and Saud 2016; Williams
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