Strengthening the component of obtaining feedback from patients and using the same to facilitate the teaching of medical students

Saurabh RamBihariLal Shrivastava; Prateek Saurabh Shrivastava

doi:10.4103/AMJM.AMJM_21_22

SHORT COMMUNICATION

Year : 2022 | Volume : 18 | Issue : 3 | Page : 102-104

Strengthening the component of obtaining feedback from patients and using the same to facilitate the teaching of medical students

Saurabh RamBihariLal Shrivastava¹, Prateek Saurabh Shrivastava²
¹ Deputy Director—Academics, Sri Balaji Vidyapeeth—Deemed to be University, Medical Education Unit Coordinator and Member of the Institute Research Council, Department of Community Medicine, Shri Sathya Sai Medical College and Research Institute, Ammapettai, Nellikuppam, Chengalpet District, Tamil Nadu, India
² Department of Community Medicine, Shri Sathya Sai Medical College and Research Institute, Sri Balaji Vidyapeeth—Deemed to be University, Ammapettai, Nellikuppam, Chengalpet District, Tamil Nadu, India

Date of Submission	17-May-2022
Date of Acceptance	06-Jul-2022
Date of Web Publication	13-Dec-2022

Correspondence Address:
Dr. Saurabh RamBihariLal Shrivastava
Department of Community Medicine, Shri Sathya Sai Medical College and Research Institute, Sri Balaji Vidyapeeth (SBV)—Deemed to be University, Thiruporur–Guduvancherry Main Road, Ammapettai, Nellikuppam, Chengalpet District 603108, Tamil Nadu
India

Source of Support: None, Conflict of Interest: None

DOI: 10.4103/AMJM.AMJM_21_22

Abstract

The process of assessment and delivering feedback to the medical students has been acknowledged as the key aspects to ensure comprehensive professional development. This calls for the need to utilize every learning opportunity and provide students with some form of constructive feedback for aiding them to attain the learning competencies. The exposure or interaction with patients plays an important role in helping the medical students establish linkage between theoretical knowledge and clinical practice and understands the practical relevance of the learned topics. Feedback received from patients can prove to be a significant add-on and help students to ascertain what has been done well and which area needs improvement. To conclude, patients are an important stakeholder and, apart from contributing to the advancement of medicine, can also help medical students learn various skills through both formal and informal ways. The need of the hour is to actively involve patients in the process of clinical teaching and make students learn medicine from the beneficiary perspective.

Keywords: Feedback, medical education, patient

How to cite this article:
Shrivastava SR, Shrivastava PS. Strengthening the component of obtaining feedback from patients and using the same to facilitate the teaching of medical students. Amrita J Med 2022;18:102-4

How to cite this URL:
Shrivastava SR, Shrivastava PS. Strengthening the component of obtaining feedback from patients and using the same to facilitate the teaching of medical students. Amrita J Med [serial online] 2022 [cited 2023 Mar 24];18:102-4. Available from: https://ajmonline.org.in/text.asp?2022/18/3/102/363498

Introduction

The process of assessment and delivering feedback to the medical students has been acknowledged as the key aspects to augment the knowledge, skills, and attitudes and to thereby ensure comprehensive professional development.^[1] In fact, definitive evidence is available suggesting that feedback plays a crucial role in learning and is one of the most important approaches to enhance learning.^[1],[2] Further, it has been envisaged that once the students accept the feedback and accordingly act upon it, the overall effect becomes even better. This calls for the need to utilize every learning opportunity and provide students with some form of constructive feedback for aiding them to attain the learning competencies.^[1],[2],[3]

Patients and Medical Education

In the process of medical curriculum delivery, a number of stakeholders such as teachers, students, administrators, parents, patients, members of the community, regulatory body, etc., have been identified.^[2],[3] In order to produce a competent medical graduate on a sustainable basis, it is a must that each one of the stakeholders contributes toward the learning process in their capacities.^[3],[4] Each of the patients who visits a hospital or those who are identified during community visits is a teacher in their own ways, as every one of them differs from each other. The sociodemographic profile, the clinical presentation, the socio-cultural values and practices make every patient unique, and it becomes the responsibility of the student to learn after establishing a rapport with them.^[1],[2],[3]

The exposure or interaction with patients plays an important role in helping the medical students establish linkage between theoretical knowledge and clinical practice and understands the practical relevance of the learned topics.^[4],[5] In addition, it even aids the students to acquire clinical skills and develop critical thinking, clinical reasoning, problem-solving, and decision-making skills.^[4],[5],[6] Further, students learn the most important aspect of the medical profession, viz., the communication skills, by interacting with the patients and their family members. These interactions with patients for the entire duration of undergraduate training are priceless moments and help them learn a lot, and the students can become better by reflecting upon the various interactions.^{[3],[4],[5],[6]}

Daycare Procedures and Clinical Training

It will not be wrong to state that with the emergence of daycare procedures and the rising incidence of nosocomial infections, the amount of time spent by the inpatients in the hospital has significantly reduced. Though it is beneficial and cost-effective for the patients, from medical students’ perspective, it has minimized the number of learning opportunities available for the learners. This calls for the need that students should be more proactive and try to optimize their learning by interacting with all patients coming to the outpatient department, by interacting with their peers posted in other departments, and by interacting with their seniors and postgraduate residents, under the guidance of the faculty members.^[7],[8] It is for us to decide about the path which we are willing to take and continue learning regardless of various other factors.

Feedback from Patients

As already mentioned, patients remain an important stakeholder in the curriculum delivery; it is the responsibility of the healthcare professionals to utilize the time with patients for self-betterment and also to help them minimize their sufferings.^[9],[10] Feedback received from patients can prove to be a significant add-on and help students ascertain what has been done well and which area needs improvement.^[5],[6] In fact, some of the medical colleges have initiated training of undergraduate medical students using standardized patients, and the evaluation studies have shown that students have found it extremely useful, especially in the domains of improving communication skills, asking the history in the right order, reaching a clinical diagnosis, and the areas which they have failed to inquire from the patients.^{[11],[12],[13]}

Even in clinical settings, workplace-based assessments have found immense utility as it gives judgment about how medical students perform in real-life scenarios. Realizing the importance of patients in improving the learning process, the use of multisource feedback tools has been widely encouraged and appreciated.^[14] The use of this tool tends to provide a comprehensive evaluation about the performance of a student, including the evaluation of the domains of communication, professionalism, teamwork, leadership qualities, etc.^[14] The feedback received from patients gives a different outlook from the beneficiaries’ perspective, and it can be used as a vital tool, whereas we move toward quality assurance and improvement of the healthcare delivery services.^[15]

At Shri Sathya Sai Medical College and Research Institute, a constituent unit of the Sri Balaji Vidyapeeth, Deemed-to-be University, Puducherry, we have started the practice of obtaining feedback from patients and their caregivers at the time of discharge from the hospital. The idea is to identify the potential problems and thereby take necessary corrective measures to enhance the quality of healthcare services delivered to the patients.

Conclusion

To conclude, patients are an important stakeholder and, apart from contributing to the advancement of medicine, can also help medical students learn various skills through both formal and informal ways. The need of the hour is to actively involve patients in the process of clinical teaching and make students learn medicine from the beneficiary perspective.

Financial support and sponsorship

Nil.

Conflicts of interest

There are no conflicts of interest.

Authors’ contributions

SRS contributed in the conception or design of the work, drafting of the work, approval of the final version of the article, and agreed for all aspects of the work. PSS contributed in the literature review, revision of the article for important intellectual content, approval of the final version of the article, and agreed for all aspects of the work.

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