A resident preceptor model improves the clerkship experience on general surgery

Abstract

Background: The frenetic pace of inpatient care on surgical services can create barriers to resident teaching of students. Students are often concerned that busy surgical residents will not be able to adequately evaluate their performance at the end of a clerkship.

Objective: To determine whether the addition of a resident preceptor would increase the satisfaction of students rotating through the general surgery portion of the required third-year surgery clerkship.

Study design: Before implementing a resident preceptor model, third-year students rotating on general surgery were administered a 24-item web-based survey regarding their experience on the general surgery portion of the surgery clerkship. General surgery residents were similarly surveyed. A resident preceptor model was then introduced. Subsequent students and residents were surveyed. Presurveys and postsurveys were compared and mean responses analyzed.

Results: The addition of a resident preceptor made students more comfortable with asking residents questions (p = 0.02), increased the time students felt was available for developing relationships with residents (p = 0.03), and improved the feeling that residents would be able to accurately evaluate the student's effectiveness as a team member (p = 0.05). The students felt resident teaching on afternoon rounds was increased with the resident preceptor model (p = 0.05). Residents reported spending more time teaching students on morning rounds (p = 0.03).

Conclusions: Implementation of a resident preceptor model resulted in significant improvement in medical students' perceptions of resident teaching effectiveness and ability to accurately evaluate a student's performance.

Keywords: Interpersonal and Communication Skills; Practice-Based Learning and Improvement; medical student; resident; surgery; teaching.