Evaluating pre-clerkship professionalism in longitudinal small groups

Abstract

teaching responsibilities in residency. We believed that the Mini-CPX would provide a rich teaching opportunity for selected fourth-year students without compromising the quality of the exam for the thirdyear students. What was done We created a programme for 8 fourthyear students to facilitate Mini-CPX teaching sessions for groups of 6 third-year students under faculty supervision. Faculty were expected primarily to observe, and to contribute only if clarification of teaching points were necessary. We also developed a syllabus for facilitators that included evidence-based strategies for teaching physical examination skills in a small group setting. In preparation for teaching, fourth-year students reviewed the syllabus and attended a brief orientation session run by the standardised patient trainer. Following the teaching session, third-year students completed a post-exam survey evaluating the effectiveness of paired fourth-year student ⁄faculty preceptors compared with faculty preceptors alone. Additionally, fourth-year students completed a postfacilitation survey regarding their Mini-CPX teaching experience. Both surveys employed a 5-point (1 ¼ strongly disagree to 5 ¼ strongly agree) Likert scale format. A 2-tailed student’s t-test, carried out at the a ¼ 0.05 level, was used to determine statistically significant differences between satisfaction with fourth-year student preceptors and faculty preceptors. Evaluation of results and impact Ninety-five per cent