Geriatric Medicine Resident-as-Teachers

This article was migrated. The article was not marked as recommended. IntroductionSubspecialty residents devote considerable time to teaching junior trainees; however, few studies have documented and evaluated resident-as-teacher (RaT) curricula for this group. The purpose of this study was to (1) assess the need for formal teaching instruction among subspecialty geriatric medicine residents and (2) implement and evaluate a RaT curriculum based on the Stanford Faculty Development Program (SFDP). MethodsSurvey-based needs assessment of subspecialty geriatric medicine residents and geriatric medicine faculty. A single-group, pretest-posttest design used to evaluate the impact of a three-hour teaching seminar on residents' teaching effectiveness and attitudes toward teaching.ResultsResidents reported limited knowledge of core teaching principles and limited exposure to formal teaching instruction. However, residents expressed strong interest in improving their teaching skills. Evaluation of the impact of the seminar intervention on residents' attitudes toward teaching and teaching performance showed statistically non-significant results.ConclusionsStudy results were statistically non-significant limited by the design and sample size and future study would benefit from an experimental design with larger sample population. They do, however, highlight the potential benefits of formal teaching instruction for subspecialty medical residents, an area that has not yet been well-explored in the medical education literature.