Osteopathic medical students' perception of teaching effectiveness of their primary care clinical preceptors

BackgroundPrimary care clinical preceptors, including physicians practicing family medicine, general internal medicine and pediatrics, are important members of the osteopathic medical school faculty. They train, teach, and mentor medical students. Their role is crucial in achieving the mission of several osteopathic medical schools – that of preparing primary care physicians to provide quality patient care.ObjectiveWe investigated the perception of effective preceptor teaching by the evaluations of third and fourth year students from one osteopathic medical school. We sought to answer the following questions: 1) Do osteopathic medical students' perception of primary care clinical preceptors' teaching effectiveness differ among family medicine, internal medicine, and pediatrics sub-disciplines?; 2) Is there a difference in osteopathic medical students' perception of teaching effectiveness and perception of the amount of time they spend with their clinical preceptors?MethodsThe study participants included third and fourth year medical students that completed the E*Value Student Evaluation of Preceptor Form of primary care clinical teachers from August 2010 to June 2012 at an osteopathic medical school at a Midwestern university in the United States of America (USA). We performed analysis of variance (ANOVA) to gauge differences among the multiple categorical variables. Differences were considered statistically significant at p ≤ 0.05.ResultsA total of 1303 students completed the evaluations. We found that students' evaluations of all assigned preceptor-related criteria and all unassigned preceptor-related criteria were significant across the three sub-disciplines. This suggests that osteopathic medical students perceive the teaching of their primary care clinical preceptors as highly effective. We also found statistically significant differences among the three categories of time spent and the overall perception of teaching effectiveness of each of the preceptor categories.ConclusionEven though preceptor teaching effectiveness is only one aspect of clinical education, it is important to understand medical students' perception regarding strengths and weaknesses of their clinical training. Perception of preceptor teaching effectiveness by medical students can provide key insights to guide curriculum/instructional design and faculty development programming.