Exposure to child and adolescent psychiatry for medical students: are there optimal "teaching perspectives"?

The ability to develop quality medical student exposures in child and adolescent psychiatry is critical to the professional development of these future physicians and to the growth of recruitment efforts into the field. This study identifies teaching perspectives among child and adolescent psychiatry faculty to determine whether there are optimal perspectives that positively influence medical student satisfaction.

Eighty-eight third- and fourth-year students at an allopathic U.S. medical school assessed teacher performance over a 1-year period using a standard internal teacher evaluation. Three experienced faculty members teaching the medical student seminars each completed a Teaching Perspective Inventory. The authors compared the different teaching perspectives with student satisfaction scores on the standard teacher evaluation instrument.

All teachers had two dominant perspectives and one recessive perspective. Each teacher had a predominant developmental perspective but they differed in other dominant and recessive perspectives. The transmission perspective was associated with significantly less favorable scores on the standard teacher evaluation compared to the apprenticeship and nurturing perspective.

The authors discuss the value of teaching perspective identification among child and adolescent psychiatry faculty for medical student education.