Teaching Feedback to First-year Medical Students: Long-term Skill Retention and Accuracy of Student Self-assessment

Giving and receiving feedback are critical skills and should be taught early in the process of medical education, yet few studies discuss the effect of feedback curricula for first-year medical students. To study short-term and long-term skills and attitudes of first-year medical students after a multidisciplinary feedback curriculum. Prospective pre- vs. post-course evaluation using mixed-methods data analysis. First-year students at a public university medical school. We collected anonymous student feedback to faculty before, immediately after, and 8 months after the curriculum and classified comments by recommendation (reinforcing/corrective) and specificity (global/specific). Students also self-rated their comfort with and quality of feedback. We assessed changes in comments (skills) and self-rated abilities (attitudes) across the three time points. Across the three time points, students’ evaluation contained more corrective specific comments per evaluation [pre-curriculum mean (SD) 0.48 (0.99); post-curriculum 1.20 (1.7); year-end 0.95 (1.5); p = 0.006]. Students reported increased skill and comfort in giving and receiving feedback and at providing constructive feedback (p < 0.001). However, the number of specific comments on year-end evaluations declined [pre 3.35 (2.0); post 3.49 (2.3); year-end 2.8 (2.1)]; p = 0.008], as did students’ self-rated ability to give specific comments. Teaching feedback to early medical students resulted in improved skills of delivering corrective specific feedback and enhanced comfort with feedback. However, students’ overall ability to deliver specific feedback decreased over time

Information overdose: Student performance and perceptions of pharmacology resources on exams

Physicians of the future will be expected to synthesize new knowledge and appropriately apply it in patient care. Here, we report on the effects of and student attitudes towards resource-enhanced exams by comparing student performance on closed-book exams with or without access to pharmacology flashcards. Setting: the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) School of Medicine (SOM), class of 2021 (N = 149), followed over 4 years. We provided pharmacology flashcards for studying purposes in all blocks; flashcards were only accessible during closed-book exams in 2 of 5 blocks. We collected pharmacology open-ended question (OEQ) scores and analyzed results using repeated measures ANOVA (SPSS). We collected MS4 survey data using Qualtrics and conducted a thematic content analysis. Performance on pharmacology questions on exams was not higher with access to pharmacology flashcards during exams. The number of students who passed pharmacology questions without flashcards on exams was as follows: 137 ± 3.7, 132 ± 5.0, and 134 ± 7.9 (average ± SEM). The number of students who passed pharmacology questions with flashcards on exams was as follows: 132 ± 6.6 and 120 ± 7.5. Survey comments revealed several themes. Access to pharmacology flashcards during exams allowed learners to focus on understanding the bigger picture and reduced stress. A subset of students reported having access to flashcards on pre-clerkship exams hurt their preparation for clerkships. Flashcards as exam resources were received well by approximately half the class, who reported benefits including more time to focus on understanding bigger picture concepts and reduced stress

Information overdose: Student performance and perceptions of pharmacology resources on exams

Abstract Physicians of the future will be expected to synthesize new knowledge and appropriately apply it in patient care. Here, we report on the effects of and student attitudes towards resource‐enhanced exams by comparing student performance on closed‐book exams with or without access to pharmacology flashcards. Setting: the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) School of Medicine (SOM), class of 2021 (N = 149), followed over 4 years. We provided pharmacology flashcards for studying purposes in all blocks; flashcards were only accessible during closed‐book exams in 2 of 5 blocks. We collected pharmacology open‐ended question (OEQ) scores and analyzed results using repeated measures ANOVA (SPSS). We collected MS4 survey data using Qualtrics and conducted a thematic content analysis. Performance on pharmacology questions on exams was not higher with access to pharmacology flashcards during exams. The number of students who passed pharmacology questions without flashcards on exams was as follows: 137 ± 3.7, 132 ± 5.0, and 134 ± 7.9 (average ± SEM). The number of students who passed pharmacology questions with flashcards on exams was as follows: 132 ± 6.6 and 120 ± 7.5. Survey comments revealed several themes. Access to pharmacology flashcards during exams allowed learners to focus on understanding the bigger picture and reduced stress. A subset of students reported having access to flashcards on pre‐clerkship exams hurt their preparation for clerkships. Flashcards as exam resources were received well by approximately half the class, who reported benefits including more time to focus on understanding bigger picture concepts and reduced stress