Bringing Education & Service Together (BEST)

A Randomized, Controlled Trial of Longitudinal Residents-as-Teachers Curriculum

Sponsored by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation
Generalist Physician Faculty Scholars Program

A multidisciplinary group of medical faculty at The University of California, Irvine and the University of California, Los Angeles completed a randomized, controlled trial of a comprehensive, longitudinal, interdisciplinary residents-as-teachers curriculum.  The project sought to address four specific aims:

1.   To determine the specific learning needs of senior primary care residents for becoming better teachers, and to develop a curriculum to address these needs, by

1. Conducting focus groups with administrators, faculty, residents, and students,

2. Administering a needs assessment questionnaire for these stakeholders, and

3. Conducting key informant interviews with institutional leaders.

2.  To undertake a pilot study of a longitudinal residents-as-teachers curriculum and evaluate it with:

1. A validated objective structured teaching examination (OSTE), and

2. Academic performance evaluations of resident teachers and their learners.

3.   To conduct a randomized, controlled, multicenter trial of a longitudinal residents-as-teachers curriculum and evaluate it with measures 2(a) and 2(b).

4.   To disseminate the project’s curriculum to residents and faculty across the country and support future research with an interactive web site developed in conjunction with the AAMC’s Graduate Medical Education Section. (www.residentteachers.com )

Sixty-two senior residents from internal medicine, pediatrics and family medicine were randomized to a six-month curriculum versus a control group. Results from the pilot study are available in the July 2003 issue of Academic Medicine (2003;78;722-729).

Investigators:

Elizabeth Morrison, MD, MSED (Principal Investigator)

John R. Boker, PhD

Charles C. Gabbert

Maurice A. Hitchcock, EdD

Judy Hollingshead, PhD, MN

F. Allan Hubbell, MD, MPH

Michael D. Prislin, MD

Lloyd Rucker, MD

LuAnn Wilkerson, EdD