Peer feedback among interprofessional allied health students in the anatomy lab (722.3)

Abstract

Giving constructive feedback is necessary for health professionals, and the anatomy lab provides an ideal environment to develop this skill. We evaluated feedback given by interprofessional allied health (physician assistant (PA), occupational (OT) & physical therapy (PT)) students, which was quantified & sorted into themes. Narrative comments were thorough, with an emphasis on strengths. 61% of positive comments were associated with themes involving professionalism/leadership skills, followed by personal behaviors (28%) & knowledge (11%). Constructively critical comments were more closely distributed between professionalism/leadership skills (43%) & personal behaviors (40%), with fewer comments addressing knowledge (17%). When evaluating positive comments, we saw no difference between feedback given by students from different departmental programs. However, departmental differences did exist regarding the focus of constructive criticisms. When compared to feedback from students in other programs, PT students identified more professionalism issues in their peers (51%), OT students cited personal behavior issues more often (44%), and PA students placed greater emphasis on knowledge deficiencies (22.5%). We propose differences in importance placed on attributes & skills may be due to differences between programmatic objectives, timing of anatomy, and/or degree level of the program.