Expanding educators' medical curriculum tool chest: minute papers as an underutilized option for obtaining immediate...

One barrier to systematically assessing feedback about the content or format of teaching conferences in graduate medical education is the time needed to collect and analyze feedback data. Minute papers, brief surveys designed to obtain feedback in a concise format, have the potential to fill this gap.

To assess whether minute papers were a feasible tool for obtaining immediate feedback on resident conferences and to use minute papers, with one added question, to assess the usefulness of changing the format of resident morning report.

Minute papers were administered at the end of internal medicine morning report conferences before and after changing the traditional combined format (all residents) to a separate format (postgraduate year [PGY] 1 met separately from PGY-2 and PGY-3 trainees). We collected information during 3 months during 2 traditional sessions and 8 sessions in the format that separated PGY-1s (3 for PGY-1 and 5 for PGY-2 and PGY-3). Participants responded to an item rating the usefulness of the session and 3 open-ended questions.

Trainees completed the forms in 2 to 3 minutes. Trainee assessment of the usefulness of internal medicine morning report appeared to increase after the change (4.09 versus 4.45 for PGY-1; 3.75 versus 4.38 for PGY-2 and PGY-3 residents).

Minute papers are practical instruments that provide manageable amounts of immediate feedback. In addition, minute papers can be adjusted slightly to help assess the impact of change. In that way, faculty can create an iterative process of feedback that models small cycles of change, a key quality improvement concept.