FM POD: An Evidence-Based Blended Teaching Skills Program for Rural Preceptors

摘要

Background and Objectives: The University of Calgary’s Rural Integrated Community Clerkship anchors final-year medical student education in 9 months of family medicine. The purpose of this pilot study was to evaluate the Family Medicine Preceptor Online Development (FM POD) program, designed to meet the faculty development needs of rural preceptors facing challenges of geographical distribution and time constraints.Methods: The theoretically based program used a blended learning approach, beginning with a face-to-face workshop to strengthen participants’ social presence during online interactions to follow. Asynchronous narrated presentations supplied foundational knowledge prior to facilitated synchronous web conferences, where participants shared experiences and co-constructed new knowledge. The program was evaluated using mixed methods, including surveys and focus group discussion.Results: Evaluation tools generated data with high internal consistency reliability; focus group information substantiated and enriched the quantitative survey data. Participants enjoyed collaborating with colleagues and rated their learning experiences highly, reporting meaningful and statistically significant increases in mean comfort with all the precepting skills taught: giving effective feedback, using questions to teach, teaching communications skills, helping learners in difficulty, and making teaching time-efficient. All effect sizes were large. Increased comfort with distance learning technologies was a positive consequence.Conclusions: Results support the applicability of principles of social constructivism, experiential learning, and reflective learning in these participants. The program was highly rated and effectively increased participants’ comfort with teaching skills, offering practical off-the-peg modular faculty development in basic teaching skills for distributed faculty. Participants appreciated the flexible delivery format, which course developers found readily adaptable for additional topics.(Fam Med 2014;46(5):369-77.)The Family Medicine Preceptor Online Development (FM POD) program was created for preceptors in the University of Calgary’s Rural Integrated Community Clerkship Program (RICC). Longitudinal integrated clerkships (LICs) have been implemented internationally since 1970; they successfully meet clinical training requirements across multiple disciplines, in comprehensive patient care settings where students experience continuity in learning.1 RICC is a 9-month LIC that places approximately 10% of University of Calgary final-year medical students in rural sites across Alberta and the Northwest Territories. The majority of clinical educational experiences are provided by rural family medicine preceptors, responsible for students’ day-to-day clinical instruction and general progress.The RICC curriculum is a move away from traditional rotation-based and specialist-centered teaching, and many rural preceptors describe uncertainty about bearing primary responsibility for students’ education across multiple disciplines. Additional challenges can include fitting teaching into daily practice over extended periods and identifying and giving feedback on learners’ progress. Additionally, rural preceptors are isolated from main academic centers, leaving some unsure about clerks’ learning needs.2Academies struggle with recruitment, retention, and development of widely distributed community-based preceptors.2-4 Teaching support is essential for the success of the RICC program, but the demands of rural practice and travel distance from academic hubs makes attendance at traditional faculty development events challenging. The FM POD program is a novel delivery format created to address these challenges.Previous work describes blended learning programs that combine internet-based modules with an interactive component such as online discussion.5-7 FM POD takes this further by deliberatively using accepted educational theory and best pr