Clinical teaching as part of continuing professional development: Does teaching enhance clinical performance?

Physicians identify teaching as a factor that enhances performance, although existing data to support this relationship is limited.

To determine whether there were differences in clinical performance scores as assessed through multisource feedback (MSF) data based on clinical teaching.

MSF data for 1831 family physicians, 1510 medical specialists, and 542 surgeons were collected from physicians' medical colleagues, co-workers (e.g., nurses and pharmacists), and patients and examined in relation to information about physician teaching activities including percentage of time spent teaching during patient care and academic appointment. Multivariate analysis of variance, partial eta squared effect sizes, and Tukey's HSD post hoc comparisons were used to determine between group differences in total MSF mean and subscale mean performance scores by teaching and academic appointment data.

Higher clinical performance scores were associated with holding any academic appointment and generally with any time teaching versus no teaching during patient care. This was most evident for data from medical colleagues, where these differences existed across all specialty groups.

More involvement in teaching was associated with higher clinical performance ratings from medical colleagues and co-workers. These results may support promoting teaching as a method to enhance and maintain high-quality clinical performance.