The Resident-as-Teacher: It's More Than Just About Student Learning

Abstract

D ocere, the Latin root of the word doctor, means to teach, and teaching is an intrinsic part of being a physician. Most physicians routinely teach their students, residents, colleagues, and patients. Residents regularly contribute to the education of medical students and their fellow residents and may spend up to one-fourth of their time supervising, instructing, and evaluating students and junior colleagues. 1 Teaching by residents is different from, and likely complementary to, that of their attending staff and faculty. Residents tend to teach (1) different things (bedside skills and patient management rather than factual knowledge), 2 (2) in a different way (as near-peer teachers); and (3) at different times (teaching while on-call). The impact of effective resident teaching goes beyond medical students and includes effects on patients but has particular benefits for the residents themselves and the systems in which they work and learn. Benefits for Students Medical students benefit greatly from having residents as teachers: it has been estimated that nearly one-third of their learning in the clinical setting comes from residents. 1 As near-peer teachers, residents are close enough to the students they teach to understand the optimal approach for them to learn. 3 Residents also are ''consciously competent,'' that is, they still can deconstruct performance on a clinical task and articulate the detailed steps to facilitate learning by novices and advanced beginners. Beyond that, residents are important role models for their junior colleagues, 4,5 and students likely acquire professional values and behaviors from their resident supervisors. Resident teaching has other positive effects on students. Highly rated resident-teachers increase student satisfaction. The study by Huynh and colleagues 6 in this issue shows that positive experiences with resident-teachers and a perceived high quality of resident education is associated with high overall satisfaction with a clerkship rotation. Medical students' career choice has also been linked with good resident teaching in surgery. 7