Feedback is crucial to medical students’ understanding of where they are in their training and what they need to do to hone their skills and improve their performance. Getting actionable feedback, however, can sometimes pose a challenge.
Maya Hammoud, MD, is a professor of obstetrics and gynecology who has worked closely with both medical students and residents as an academic coach. She offered some salient advice on how medical students can incorporate feedback into their training and help establish a practice of lifelong learning.
Be proactive
Dr. Hammoud said that not all medical school faculty are "created equal" or feel perfectly comfortable giving constructive feedback directly. Because of that, waiting for actionable feedback isn’t always the best route to a medical student’s development.
“Many of my students, when I finish my clinic with them, they literally say to me: ‘Can you tell me what I did well and what do I need to work on for next time?’” Dr. Hammoud noted. “In seeking out information that way, what they do is they open the door for me to actually give them constructive feedback for next time.”
When a medical student frames the matter as a request for advice on how they can improve the next time they are doing a task, it helps make the feedback more targeted and actionable, Dr. Hammoud said.
“I feel it’s important to give them something specific,” she said. “For example, I might say, ‘When you spoke with the patient, you used a lot of medical language. Next time, try to use language that's easier for the patient to understand.’ The idea is, when they ask what they can improve, I provide something concrete.”
To help improve medical students’ access to high-quality feedback and more, Dr. Hammoud and her AMA colleagues will host the inaugural AMA Coaching Summit, Aug. 13–14 in Chicago. This national conference will highlight how coaching transforms medical education through innovation, evidence and collaboration. Learn more and register now.
Goals guide improvement
Setting goals is the best way for medical students to get useful feedback. Communicating goals to faculty members can be of particular import when students feel they aren’t getting enough direction.
Dr. Hammoud said it’s important to make faculty members aware of your goals. To do that, at the beginning of a clinic, state your goals for the day, including one item you specifically want to work on. That goal could be based on previous feedback.
A medical student might say to the faculty they are working with, “In my last clinic, the faculty I worked with said that I need to work on my physical exam skills.”
At the end of the day, the medical student should follow up to get pointers on their goals.
The need for coaching extends into residency. That is why the AMA ChangeMedEd® initiative published Coaching in Graduate Medical Education—A Faculty Handbook, which presents the work of experts who have implemented coaching programs at their own institutions. Download the free handbook now.
Self-direction is key
Ideally, getting feedback is a partnership and not solely the student's responsibility, Dr. Hammoud said. By proactively seeing the process as a partnership and giving the instructor an opening—a prompt where you ask for feedback—the medical student makes it easier for the instructor to provide the necessary criticism.
“If it's a partnership, as a learner, I need an instructor to actually help me figure out where my deficiencies are,” she said. “I need to actually have the ownership and responsibility to ask what my deficiencies are so I can take the self-directed learning of actually working on them before I come next time to that environment and show I’ve done the work.”
Dr. Hammoud noted that there may not always be time for feedback in the middle of a shift.
“Feedback should occur with every patient—theoretically,” Dr. Hammoud said. “But you don’t always have time to do that. So, if I have a student for a half day, I try to dedicate a few minutes at the beginning to understand their goals, then take a few minutes at the end to debrief and talk about their progress.”
With an emphasis on skill development and creating lifelong learners, academic coaching has gained prominence in medical education. A recent episode of the "AMA Catalyzing Change in MedEd" podcast examines the nuances of academic coaching and how a coach supports medical student professional growth.
