The Resident as Teacher in Family Medicine: Experimental Study with a Face-to-Face Course and its Online Version

Abstract

Background: Medical specialty residents have a wide variety of activities, including teaching other residents, interns, medical and nursing students. Formal courses about the resident-as-teacher concept are scarce in Latin America. Online learning is a modality that allows delivery of courses to busy professionals with complicated schedules, like medical residents, providing time management and the possibility of dedicating time to course activities practically anywhere. The goal of this study was to develop a resident-as-teacher online course for Family Medicine residents, and to compare its effectiveness with its face-to-face version.
Method: A randomized controlled trial was performed, with a stratified sample of 2nd year Family Medicine residents, at the Mexican Institute of Social Security in Mexico City. One group received the face-to-face version of a “resident-as-teacher” course designed at UNAM Faculty of Medicine, and the other group had an online modality adapted version of the course. Faculty and content in both courses were the same. The outcome measures were self-assessment of knowledge and skills with a retrospective pre-post questionnaire, an objective multiple-choice question test for knowledge, and teaching competencies measured with an Objective Structured Teaching Examination (OSTE).
Results: 42 residents participated: group 1 (n=22) underwent the online modality (G1EL), and group 2 (n=20) experienced the face-to-face version (G2P). 15 Residents from group 1, and 14 from group 2 completed all the assessment instruments. G1EL had better performance than G2P in the knowledge test (p<0.05) and in the OSTE clinical teaching station (p<0.05). The other comparisons had no significant differences.
Conclusions: The educational effectiveness of a resident-as-teacher online course in Family Medicine residents was similar to a face-to-face course with similar content. There was a higher impact in knowledge acquisition and in one teaching competency. The online modality in these courses should be explored in other contexts and specialties.