May Summary

Our question for May asked how clinical teachers (especially young teachers) strike the right balance between being considered overly accommodating (pushover) and being considered overly strict (task master).

Our faculty came through with six excellent suggestions. The advice from the faculty was to:

• Set expectations or standards early in the process; this way students and residents will know how to prepare and won’t feel “ambushed”
• Use the ASK-TELL-ASK approach to giving feedback, always starting with the learners’ perspective, using their concerns as a springboard for teaching
• Model the behavior you expect from your learners
  

Two other comments reflected on the difficulties young clinical teachers face as they transition from resident or fellow to attending and develop their own teaching persona. Anecdotally, new faculty have described difficulties especially when joining the faculty at the institution in which they trained, citing evaluating past peers as the most difficult. I reviewed the literature and could find nothing helpful concerning this transition. Perhaps this is an open area for educational research!!