Maximizing teaching on the wards: review and application of the One-Minute Preceptor and SNAPPS models

Abstract

Hospitalist educators face a number of challenges in teaching clinical reasoning to residents and medical students. Helping to develop trainees' clinical acumen is an essential and highly nuanced process, yet complex patients, documentation requirements, and productivity goals compete with teaching time. Workplace-based assessment is particularly important for residents with the institution of the developmental milestones for meeting Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education competencies. Two frameworks for facilitating the clinical reasoning discussion-the One-Minute Preceptor preceptor and SNAPPS-have been well studied in the outpatient setting with positive results. Both models show promise for use in the inpatient teaching environment with little modification. This narrative review compares and contrasts these 2 teaching frameworks and discusses their application to the inpatient teaching environment. These models can provide opportunities for hospitalist educators to better assess trainees, integrate regular feedback, and encourage self-directed learning. These teaching frameworks can also allow hospitalists to provide more focused education to trainees without taking additional valuable time.