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

Abstract

BACKGROUND: 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. OBJECTIVES: To study short-term and long-term skills and attitudes of first-year medical students after a multidisciplinary feedback curriculum. DESIGN: Prospective pre- vs. post-course evaluation using mixed-methods data analysis. PARTICIPANTS: First-year students at a public university medical school. INTERVENTIONS: 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. MEASUREMENTS AND MAIN RESULTS: 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∈