The role of attribution to clerk factors and contextual factors in supervisors' perceptions of clerks' behaviors.
BACKGROUND
Novice clinical clerks are expected to integrate smoothly into a medical team, often with little guidance.


OBJECTIVE
To explore medical residents' and attendings' perceptions of clerk behaviors that may aid or hinder this integration.


METHODS
Three resident focus groups and 5 attending staff interviews were conducted. Transcripts were analyzed using grounded theory.


RESULTS
One hundred thirty-seven instances of clerk behaviors were identified. Many similar behaviors were alternately perceived as positive or negative, depending critically on 2 dimensions the clerk (speculated motives or personality traits) or the context (timing of behavior or clerk's stage of training). Motives and traits were mentioned nearly 3 times as often as contextual factors, possibly reflecting the fundamental attribution error, as described in social psychology. Supervisors' perceptions of why or when a behavior was enacted were an important factor in their perceptions.


CONCLUSIONS
With explicit discussion of this phenomenon, supervisors' judgments might suffer from fewer biases, and students' integration into the team and profession might occur with less ambiguity and stress.
Lavine
Elana
E
Department of Pediatrics, University of Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
Regehr
Glenn
G
Garwood
Kim
K
Ginsburg
Shiphra
S
D000739:Anecdotes as Topic; D001291:Attitude of Health Personnel; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007396:Internship and Residency; D007400:Interprofessional Relations; D007588:Job Satisfaction; D008297:Male; D008505:Medical Staff, Hospital / Q000592:standards*; D008611:Mentors; D009864:Ontario; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires