title: Clinical Clerkship Education Improves With Implementing a System of Internal Program Evaluation Using Medical Students' Feedbacks.
abstract: Quality of clinical education for medical students has always been a concern in academic medicine. This concern has increased in today's time-squeeze while faculty members have to fulfill their complementary roles as a teacher, researcher, and practitioner. One of the strategies for program evaluation is obtaining trainees' feedbacks since they are the main customers of educational programs; however, there are debates about the efficacy of student feedback as a reliable source for reforms. We gathered Likert scores on a 16-item questionnaire from 2,771 medical students participating in all clerkship programs in a multidisciplinary teaching hospital. An expert panel consisting of 8 attending physicians established content validity of the questionnaire while a high Cronbach's Alpha (0.93) proved its reliability. Summary reports of these feedbacks were presented to heads of departments, clerkship program directors, and hospital administrators, at the end of each semester. Analysis of variance was used for comparing hospital scores across different time periods and different departments. Significant changes (P<0.001) were observed in mean scores between different semesters (partial η2=0.090), different departments (partial η2=0.149) as well as the interaction term between departments and semesters (partial η2=0.111). A significant improvement in mean clinical education score is noticeable after three semesters from the beginning of the survey. Periodic, systematic trainee's feedback to program directors can lead to an improved educational performance in teaching hospitals.
authors.affiliation: Department of Internal Medicine, School of Medicine, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran.
authors.forename: Anahita
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Sadeghi
authors.affiliation: Endocrinology and Metabolism Research Institute, Shariati Hospital, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran.
authors.forename: Hamidreza
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Aghaei Meybodi
authors.affiliation: Department of Internal Medicine, School of Medicine, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran.
authors.forename: Behrouz
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Navabakhsh
authors.affiliation: Department of Surgery, School of Medicine, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran.
authors.forename: Ahmadreza
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Soroush
authors.affiliation: Digestive Diseases Research Institute, Shariati Hospital, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran.
authors.forename: Masoud Mohammad
authors.initials: MM
authors.lastname: Malekzadeh
authors.affiliation: Department of Surgery, School of Medicine, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran.
authors.forename: Zhamak
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Khorgami
mesh_terms: D002982:Clinical Clerkship / Q000592:standards*; D005246:Feedback; D006801:Humans; D015397:Program Evaluation / Q000379:methods*; D058996:Quality Improvement / Q000458:organization & administration*; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D013337:Students, Medical; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires
keywords: Clerkship; Feedback; Medical education; Medical student; Program evaluation; Trainee