FM POD: an evidence-based blended teaching skills program for rural preceptors

Area of Science:

• Medical Education
• Faculty Development
• Rural Health

Background:

• Rural Integrated Community Clerkship requires 9 months of family medicine education for final-year medical students.
• Rural preceptors face geographical and time constraints impacting faculty development.
• The Family Medicine Preceptor Online Development (FM POD) program was created to address these needs.

Purpose of the Study:

• To evaluate the effectiveness of the FM POD program.
• To assess the program's ability to meet the faculty development needs of rural preceptors.

Main Methods:

• A blended learning approach combining face-to-face workshops and online components.
• Asynchronous presentations for foundational knowledge followed by synchronous web conferences for knowledge co-construction.
• Mixed-methods evaluation using surveys and focus group discussions.

Main Results:

• High internal consistency reliability for evaluation tools.
• Participants reported significant increases in comfort with key precepting skills (feedback, questioning, communication, learner support, time efficiency).
• Positive increase in comfort with distance learning technologies.

Conclusions:

• The FM POD program effectively increased preceptors' teaching skills and comfort.
• Principles of social constructivism, experiential learning, and reflective learning are applicable.
• The program offers practical, adaptable faculty development for distributed rural faculty.