Telephone precepting: the development of a curriculum

Telephone precepting is a major tool in residency training that has not been evaluated or specifically taught.

Residents and attendings of 2 family practice residency programs were surveyed for their experiences and needs with telephone precepting.

Residents and attendings each felt that the other could improve their role in a phone precepting encounter. After considering various options, a workshop was developed that involves residents and attendings learning together. The workshop was tested at residency sites and national meetings. It involves playing taped simulated phone encounters followed by group discussion of the replayed tapes. The tapes recount tested examples of various phone preceptor encounters.

Participants agreed that telephone precepting is an area of residency training that has not been explored and that discussing the tapes was helpful.