Resident physicians’ perspectives on effective outpatient teaching: a qualitative study

Abstract

Learning theories, which suggest that experienced faculty use collaborative teaching styles, are reflected in qualitative studies of learners in hospital settings. However, little research has used resident focus groups to explore characteristics of successful teachers in outpatient clinics. Therefore, focus group discussions with first through third-year internal medicine residents at a large academic medical center were conducted to better understand residents' perspectives on effective outpatient teaching. A group facilitator solicited residents' reflections, based on their lived experiences, on teaching domains from previous factor analytic studies: interpersonal, clinical-teaching, and efficiency. Researchers coded focus group transcripts and identified themes within the domains. Final themes were determined by consensus. Leading themes were "kindness" and "teacher-learner relationships." Junior residents were sensitive to faculty who were brusque, harsh, and degrading. Senior residents respected faculty who were humble, collaborative, and allowed residents to co-manage teaching encounters. Seniors emphasized the importance of faculty role-modelling and preferentially staffed with experts to "gain wisdom from experience." Overall, residents expressed that effective learning requires grounded teacher-learner relationships. These findings support learning theories and previous factor analytic studies. However, this qualitative study provided insights that could not be gleaned from assessment scores alone.

The characteristics of a good clinical teacher as perceived by resident physicians in Japan: a qualitative study

“…However, the potential for this is minimal in this study, because the facilitator was trained beforehand and conducted the FGIs according to carefully considered guidelines. Second, the data for this study were obtained from written transcripts of the FGIs, which is less accurate than directly obtaining data from audiotapes [34]. Third, our comparisons with Sutkin’s categories may differ from the comparisons of others.…”

An instrument for evaluating clinical teaching in Japan: content validity and cultural sensitivity

“…independently searched PubMed for English-language papers published since 2000 using different combinations of the following keywords: teaching, effectiveness, clinical, assessment, instrument, evaluation, teacher, and inventory. Through a literature search, six articles regarding attributes of effective teachers (one review of the literature article [6], five empirical studies [3, 43–46]), and seven articles of instruments to evaluate clinical teachers (all empirical studies) [4, 11, 12, 14, 15, 47, 48] were identified. All of the articles were reports from Western countries except Zuberi’s Instrument (SETOC) from Pakistan.…”

“…Clinical teaching is essential when residents are trained in clinical practice [2, 3] and is recognised as an important aspect in the postgraduate educational environment [4]. By acting as role models and providing support, clinical teachers can optimize the learning potential of the workplace [5].…”

Group Assessments of Resident Physicians Improve Reliability and Decrease Halo Error

“…This is similar to what we had found in previous qualitative studies at our institution, which showed that narrative comments provide, more than quantitative questionnaire data, valuable information regarding interpersonal dynamics. 30 Finally, faculty members' satisfaction and improved confidence with group assessment were surveyed with a non-validated instrument (so information regarding the properties of this instrument are unknown) and were not substantiated by objective measures. Future studies should assess whether these perceptions can be confirmed objectively.…”