Residents as Teachers: Analysis of Performance on End-of-Clerkship Questionnaire and Correlation With Graduation Questionnaire Outcomes

Abstract

BACKGROUND: Several reports indicate ObGyn medical education is one of the lowest-rated of 3rd-year the core clerkships. Resident teaching is among the lowest of the areas rated. Following our department's low rating in 2012–2013 we sought to determine how resident performance as teachers (RAT) changed after instituting a series of improvements, and to validate performance changes by correlation with student comments and GQ survey outcomes. METHODS: Medicine and ObGyn End of Clerkship survey responses to the statement, “Residents were interested in teaching, spent time with students and treated students as valuable members of the health-care team” were collapsed into two groups (disagree or neutral, and agree or strongly agree) and compared using the Pearson χ2 Test. Differences between each year’s performance were considered significant if P<.05. Medicine clerkship responses served as a control. RESULTS: Medicine resident teaching performance did not change over 4 years. ObGyn performance was significantly lower than Medicine in the first year of evaluation and dropped further in the second year. Following initiation of a RAT program, ObGyn performance improved significantly and correlated with an improvement in GQ performance. Typical student responses include “I found this a great opportunity to get a lot of hands-on experience and the residents I worked with were exceptional” and “Fantastic learning experience, feel lucky to have had the opportunity and a wonderful resident supervisor.” DISCUSSION: Student rating of resident teaching performance improved significantly after instituting a RAT program, demonstrating that teaching performance can improve.