One minute preceptor as an effective teaching and learning method for pediatric internship: An interventional study

Abstract

Background: Compulsory Rotating Residential Internship (CRRI) is an important learning period for medical graduates to become competent registered medical practitioners. Exclusive teaching programs for interns are scarce. During short pediatric CRRI postings, it is difficult to disseminate the necessary knowledge and skills to manage the common pediatric problems seen in the community by traditional teaching methods. We explored innovative teaching techniques to train the interns in a short time to acquire such basic skills. One minute preceptor (OMP) is a five micro skills clinical teaching, tailored to the learner’s needs by motivating them to learn. Objective: To implement OMP in our busy pediatric outpatient department (OPD) to train the interns and
to know if it is an effective teaching technique. Methods: The study group included 15 interns who were posted to pediatric OPD on rotation for a month and never had earlier OMP teaching module. Their learning experience with traditional teaching method was gathered by a validated pre-project questionnaire graded on Likert scale. After 3 OMP sessions with a trained faculty, their learning experience was again collected by a post-project questionnaire. The data were compared and analyzed statistically using stata14 version software. p<0.05 was considered as statistically significant. Results: The average scores of questions went up from 1.3 and
3.1 in pre-project questionnaire to average scores of 2.3 and 4.1 in post-project questionnaire on a 5-point Likert scale. This shows OMP as an effective teaching method over traditional teaching method for interns at pediatric OPD. Preceptor experienced OMP as simple, individualized and focused teaching method to the interns. Conclusion: OMP should be implemented in pediatric OPD to train the interns on common pediatric problems.