Precepting residents in continuity clinic involves a complex set of skills, including the ability to teach clinical reasoning and the ability to teach physical exam skills at the bedside. Other important skills include helping residents with time management during clinic, and giving feedback to residents.

There is currently no mechanism in place within the MGH Med-Peds residency program to measure preceptors’ skills in these areas, or to measure the preceptors’ confidence in their skills. There is also no formalized faculty development or mentoring in place for MGH Med- Peds clinic preceptors. The MGH Internal Medicine Residency and the MGH Pediatric Residency both have yearly preceptor retreats for the purpose of faculty development, however neither program’s preceptor development curriculum has been validated or published.

There is little data available regarding national trends in preceptor development for Med- Peds, Pediatric or Internal Medicine programs in this country. A search of the medical literature revealed one Preceptor Development Curriculum aimed at rural family medicine practitioners affiliated with the University of North Carolina, (Tresolini, MedEdPortal, 2006). However there are no published studies of preceptor development curriculum for Pediatric, Internal Medicine, or Med-peds programs.

At a national meeting of Med-Peds Program Directors in April 2011, the principal investigator of this study conducted an IRB approved survey of Med-Peds programs on this issue. Of the programs responding, only 22% have any Med-Peds faculty development sessions. Only 47% of programs receive some outpatient-focused faculty development through their Pediatric department. Of programs responding, 64% receive faculty development on outpatient topics through their Internal Medicine department. However, 75% of programs responding sa id they would be interested in helping to develop a preceptor curriculum, and 100% of programs expressed interest in using a preceptor development curriculum if developed and distributed to med-peds programs. This demonstrates a nationwide need for a preceptor development curriculum for preceptors in Med-Peds, Pediatric and Internal medicine programs. Since these programs around the country share common educational goals for training preceptors who can then train residents and medical students, a studied, validated preceptor development curriculum is needed.

The purpose of this study is to create a validated preceptor development curriculum for Med-Peds preceptors. The curriculum will consist of a series of training session on topics such as giving residents feedback, assisting residents with time management, and teaching clinical reasoning in the outpatient setting. These workshops will be developed and tested in Med-Peds preceptors, but the topics will be applicable to categorical Pediatric preceptors and Internal Medicine preceptors as well. If this curriculum is found to be effective, it will be distributed to interested Med-Peds, Pediatrics and Internal Medicine Programs around the country.