Improving Faculty Teaching of Medical Students During Surgical Clerkships: The Feedback they Want and the Feedback they Need

OBJECTIVE

To explore the types of feedback surgical faculty seek from learners to improve teaching skills and inform development of a more useful evaluation instrument.

DESIGN

Qualitative study using one-hour, semi-structured virtual interviews and reflexive thematic analysis.

SETTING

Department of Surgery at a single academic health center in the western United States.

PARTICIPANTS

Nine attending-level surgeons (4 female, 5 male) overseeing undergraduate medical student clerkships, representing 3 to 6, 10 to 14, and ≥20 years of teaching experience and varied educational training backgrounds.

RESULTS

Participants described teaching as rewarding—enhancing their own knowledge and witnessing learner growth—but also noted frustrations including time pressures, learner overload, and balancing control with autonomy. They reported that existing learner evaluations often arrive too late, use inflated Likert ratings, and lack specific narrative detail, limiting actionable insights. Faculty recommended targeted improvements: direct questions (e.g., “What could this person do to be a better teacher?”), prompts for qualitative comments, inclusion of time spent and teaching context (OR, clinic, floor), and checkboxes for observable teaching behaviors. A list of teaching behaviors and strategies was identified to inform future instrument items.

CONCLUSIONS

Surgical faculty desire timely, specific, and context-rich feedback to drive teaching improvement. Embedding structured prompts for actionable narrative comments and contextual variables into evaluation tools may enhance faculty development and align assessments with competency-based education goals.