What's the Evidence: A Review of the One-Minute Preceptor Model of Clinical Teaching and Implications for Teaching in the Emergency Department

Abstract

Background: The 2012 Academic Emergency Medicine Consensus Conference, "Education Research in Emergency Medicine: Opportunities, Challenges, and Strategies for Success" noted that emergency medicine (EM) educators often rely on theory and tradition in molding their approaches to teaching and learning, and called on the EM education community to advance the teaching of our specialty through the performance and application of research in teaching and assessment methods, cognitive function, and the effects of education interventions.

Objective: The purpose of this article is to review the research-based evidence for the effectiveness of the one-minute preceptor (OMP) teaching method, and to provide suggestions for its use in clinical teaching and learning in EM.

Discussion: This article reviews hypothesis-testing education research related to the use of the OMP as a pedagogical method applicable to clinical teaching. Evidence indicates that the OMP prompts the teaching of higher level concepts, facilitates the assessment of students' knowledge, and prompts the provision of feedback. Students indicate satisfaction with this method of clinical case-based discussion teaching.

Conclusion: Advancing EM education will require that high quality education research results be translated into actual curricular, pedagogical, assessment, and professional development changes. The OMP is a pedagogical method that is applicable to teaching in the emergency department.

Keywords: clinical teaching; education research; emergency medicine; one-minute preceptor.