Interns reflect: the effect of formative assessment with feedback during pre-internship

Abstract

BackgroundIt is widely known that the opportunity for medical students to be observed and to receive feedback on their procedural skills performance is variable in the senior years. To address this problem, we provided our Pre-Intern (PrInt) students with “one-to-one” formative feedback on their ability to perform urethral catheterization (U/C) and hypothesized that their future practice of U/C as interns would benefit. This study sought to evaluate the performance and practice of interns in U/C 4–5 months after having received feedback on their performance of U/C as PrInt students.MethodsBetween 2013 and 2014, two cohorts of interns, (total n=66) who had received recent formative feedback on their U/C performance as PrInt students at Central Clinical School, were invited to complete an anonymous survey. The survey contained nine closed unvalidated questions and one open-ended question, designed to allow interns to report on their current practice of U/C.ResultsForty-one out of 66 interns (62%) completed the survey. Thirty-five out of 41 respondents (85%) reported that the assessment with feedback during their PrInt term was beneficial to their practice. Thirty of 41 (73%) reported being confident to perform U/C independently. Eleven out of 41 respondents (27%) reported that they had received additional training at intern orientation. Nine of the 11 interns (82%) reported that they had a small, but a significant, increase in confidence to perform U/C when compared with the 30 of the 41 respondents (73%) who had not (p=0.03).ConclusionOur results substantiate our hypothesis that further education by assessment with feedback in U/C during PrInt was of benefit to interns’ performance. Additional educational reinforcement in U/C during intern orientation further improved intern confidence. Our results indicate that extra pre- and post-graduation procedural skills training, with feedback, should be universal.

Direct Observation of Procedural Skills (Dops) Versus Traditional Assessment Method for Nasogastric Tube Insertion Skill

“…7 The feedback given at the end of each assessment added quality to the skill as also stated by Amin R R et al in their article where they stated that they consider feedback an important learning tool for students and agree that providing student's feedback can improve their abilities to perform clinical skills. 8 The importance of feedback was also cited by McKenzie S et al 9 and by Srinivasan M et al 10 All these prove that DOPS is a very effective method. Holmboe E et al stated that Direct observation of competence training, a new multifaceted approach to faculty development, leads to meaningful changes in rating behaviours and in faculty comfort with evaluation of clinical skills.…”

The importance of feedback for medical students’ development

“…This study was particularly interesting to us as fifth-year medical students at Imperial College London who have learnt several clinical skills during rotations. A noteworthy finding was that education involving providing feedback to students had a positive impact on their performance 1. Furthermore, the recommendation that clinical skills training be accompanied with feedback resonated strongly with us.…”

“…We wish to thank Dr Amin and colleagues for their interest in our recent article1 and have found their feedback encouraging for our work.…”

“…We agree that providing student’s feedback can improve their abilities to perform clinical skills1 and also take histories, perform examinations, and tend to patient comfort. We suggest that electronic feedback be implemented in all forms of medical training.…”

“…We read with great interest the study by McKenzie et al,1 which explores the impact of providing feedback to students on their ability to carry out a clinical procedure. This study was particularly interesting to us as fifth-year medical students at Imperial College London who have learnt several clinical skills during rotations.…”