All authors read and approved the final manuscript. Pre-publication history The pre-publication history for this paper can be accessed

here: http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-227X/9/9/prepub Acknowledgements The authors gratefully acknowledge the help of Emmet Forkan, Advanced Paramedic, Galway University Hospitals and Mark Dixon, Project Officer, Centre for Immediate Care Services, University College Dublin, for Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical their help in recruiting Advanced Paramedics for this study. We would like to thank Pentax Ltd, for the provision of the AWS® device. All other support was solely from institutional and/or departmental sources.
In June 2002, Germany revised nationwide regulations, requiring new subjects such as anaesthesiology or public health as compulsory subjects, or interdisciplinary courses Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical in health economics, ethics or epidemiology within the different local curricula [1]. “Emergency Medical Care” was introduced as an interdisciplinary subject, because issues in

emergency treatment are of increasing importance within the curriculum. In general, these areas are “interdisciplinary” with an integrating character to various disciplines and are intended to prepare the professional for the practical requirements of working life Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical as physician. With respect to “Emergency Medical Care,” existing Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical courses in two different parts of the curriculum were centralized and combined under one central theme. With respect to a detailed implementation of the new regulations, it was postulated that medical education in these areas has to be focused on patient care, related to practice and should integrate small group AP24534 chemical structure training sessions where possible [1]. Another innovation to be implemented nationwide was the request to assess and grade every subject within the curriculum, and to include these results

in the final certificate. However, the duration and the modality of the examinations are not defined in detail. These Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical requirements demanded Org 27569 the best effort from many faculties and disciplines, especially where methods and structures of routine assessments were not established. Additionally, an appropriate standard for quality management in undergraduate education was set for the first time: all courses have to be evaluated regularly, and these results have to be published. Unfortunately, the 2002 regulations did not specify the impact of the sustainability of the evaluation data. As a result, all medical schools had to re-arrange courses and curricular structure, because of the general consequences of the new regulations, including a shift in the defined workload of the participating disciplines, implementation of new assessment requirements etc. [1].