UT Methodist Physicians
Background: Residents spend a great deal of time with supervising faculty in their continuity clinic in primary care residencies. The long-term relationship between the resident and faculty presents an opportunity for providing feedback on the resident’s knowledge, skills, and practice style.
Methods: Focus group discussions with primary care residency supervising faculty at the University of Tennessee Health Science Center were analyzed to determine the goals, current knowledge and feelings, and barriers regarding providing feedback to residents during continuity clinic. Qualitative analysis using grounded theory was performed to identify themes within the focus group data, leading to an underlying theory about the provision of feedback to residents in primary care resident clinic. Data were used to propose improvements to the current process of feedback.
Results: Categories in the data included the longitudinal nature of the faculty-resident relationship, need for management of emotional response to feedback, faculty preparedness, and difficulty determining the content of feedback that should be provided. These influenced the three major components of feedback, which were the content, delivery, and reception of feedback.
Conclusion: Addressing components of the content of feedback, delivery of feedback, and the attitude or receptivity of the learner can help improve the quality and quantity of feedback given to residents in clinic.
