Do students need more feedback?

Feedback is one of the most vital aspects of medical education. It allows learners to develop expertise, identify strengths and weaknesses, and helps define expectations. It also helps to foster a relationship between the student and the teacher and makes them both active partners towards the student’s progress.

Nonetheless, I found myself in many rotations feeling as if I had no idea how I was performing. I remember meeting with my CTU preceptor on the last day of my rotation and being surprised that I had done well (I guess I should be thankful it wasn’t the other way around). Why is feedback so often forgotten? 

The first is undoubtedly an issue of time restraints – supervisors may be just too busy to have a formal debrief. It is also possible that supervisors have limited information about the student’s actual performance or do not know what the correct standard the student should be held to. It is also possible that there is a worry about the consequences of negative feedback, both in terms of the learner’s self esteem or the future relationship of the teacher-student. Or, perhaps the student is getting feedback and just doesn’t realize it.

Supervisors need to be trained on giving feedback. The feedback also needs to be constructive and should identify areas of improvement.  I have seen a few “models” on giving feedback in the literature and they all seem to outline a similar framework:  set up an appropriate environment, ask the student about their own perceptions, give them the feedback, give specific examples, and review. Seems fairly intuitive.

But, we cannot simply just blame the teacher. We students need to take responsibility for our own education. We need to learn to ask for feedback. We also need to take active roles in self-appraisal and self-reflection. I think as we go forward, we should be relying far less on feedback from supervisors and far more on our own personal assessments of ourselves.   

-Carolyn