Improving the quality of clinical training in the workplace: implementing formative assessment visits

Abstract

Family physicians have a key role to play in strengthening district health services in South Africa. There are a number of barriers to the supply of these specialists in family medicine, one of which is the quality of workplace-based training and low pass rate in the national exit examination. The South African Academy of Family Physicians in collaboration with the Royal College of General Practitioners has adopted a short course to train clinical trainers and a process of formative assessment visits (FAVs) for clinical trainers in the workplace. Training programmes have struggled to implement the FAVs and this article reports on the experience at Stellenbosch University and the issues identified. Clinical trainers who participated in FAVs mostly set developmental goals for themselves that focused on improving the learning environment and consolidating personal skills in training and assessment. The FAVs were beneficial for the family physician trainers, their managers and the academic family physicians at the university. The tools and process for conducting the FAVs may be of value to other programmes.

Perceptions of resources available for postgraduate family medicine training at a South African university

“…This could assist in achieving expected training standards and acquiring resources. 57 Family physicians and registrars suggested recruiting more full-time trainers by the university to strengthen DCT. The FP trainers, if newly recruited, should be based anywhere in the district health system, either in PHC or district hospitals, rather than at the regional or tertiary hospitals or the university, acquiring more hands-on patient care experience, capacitating them to develop as clinical trainers.…”

“…For example, FPs should engage facility managers at PHC level, where most of the training is conducted. 57 This type of engagement could mitigate the lack of knowledge and understanding that could underpin inadequate support for registrar training. The district and university heads of department should support FPs in engaging district managers at various levels in raising stakeholder awareness about the necessity of adequate resource provision for effective registrar training.…”

The state of family medicine training programmes within the Primary Care and Family Medicine Education network

“…There is a need to train more clinical trainers and to support ongoing formative assessment visits to improve the learning environments. 20 …”

“…There is a need to train more clinical trainers and to support ongoing formative assessment visits to improve the learning environments. 20 In South Africa, there exists a consensus at national level regarding the training outcomes, skills list, curriculum content and the national college exit examination. 21 A National Education and Training Committee maintains this consensus with all nine programmes and operates under the auspices of a national professional body, the South African Academy of Family Physicians.…”

The Leadership Gym: A Proposed Undergraduate Leadership Programme for Generation Z

“…Furthermore, members' leadership behavioural progress is formatively assessed on a weekly basis through one-to-one feedback sessions where members are engaged in the feedback process through peer and self-evaluation as well as receiving feedback from their coaches (Moore, Jones and Frazier, 2017). Formative assessment is known for its effect when behavioural aspects are being developed and evaluated through an ongoing process International Journal of Education and Knowledge Management (IJEKM) https://rpajournals.com/ijekm (Mash et al, 2019). Such assessments have been found more effective in enhancing Gen-Zers' skills than traditional standardised summative assessments particularly for outcomebased education (Moore, Jones and Frazier, 2017).…”