Teaching the Learner to Teach: An Effective Curriculum to Engage Residents as Educators
*Mollie R Freedman-Weiss, *Samantha L Ahle, *Erin M White, *Martin D Slade, *Dana W Dunne, *John A Encandela, Daniel G Solomon, *Kristen D Oliveira, Walter E Longo, *Janet P Hafler, Peter S Yoo
Yale School of Medicine, New Haven, CT
Objective: Junior residents are not uniformly prepared, trained, or comfortable with their implicit roles as teachers. There exist no feasible and reproducible published curricula toward this mission. We designed and implemented a curriculum for Junior Residents-as-Teachers with the aim of studying the impact on residents’ comfort, confidence, and behaviors as well as proving the feasibility/reproducibility of the course. Design: Intervention study Setting: University- based residency program Participants: PGY-1 and 2 general surgery residents (n=26)Interventions: Using Kerns’ 6-step model of curriculum development, two 2-hour workshops were designed and implemented in the fall and spring of 2018 and 2019. The curriculum focused on the learning climate, expectation setting, teaching, and feedback. Main Outcome Measures: Evaluation data were collected 1 month after the final session with a retrospective pre-post survey assessing change in self-reported behaviors, comfort, and confidence and a course evaluation. Improvement was analyzed using a student’s t-test (1-sided, p <0.05 as significant). Results: The course had >90% participation. Statistically significant increases (p<0.01) were seen in each self-reported comfort, confidence, and time spent on: expectation setting, teaching, giving feedback, and role-modeling. Participants had increased confidence, though not comfort, in teaching via didactic. After the curriculum, participants believed to a greater extent (p=0.01) that being a skilled teacher is important during residency. All respondents supported offering the course to future trainees. Conclusions: This junior-residents-as-teachers course resulted in significant improvements in self-reported comfort, confidence, and time spent on teaching activities. The course was feasible even within the constraints of a surgical-training program and is reproducible. The curriculum was again run in 2019 with 34 participants, data analysis is ongoing.
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