Adherence to Trained Standards After a Faculty Development Workshop on "Teaching With Simulated Patients".

Area of Science:

• Medical Education
• Faculty Development
• Communication Skills Training

Background:

• Faculty development programs are crucial for enhancing medical teaching quality globally.
• Current assessment methods for these programs often rely on knowledge gain or self-reports, lacking comprehensive impact evaluation.
• Measuring the practical transfer of learned skills remains a challenge.

Purpose of the Study:

• To evaluate the application of specific teaching standards after a workshop on communication skills with simulated patients.
• To assess the correlation between adherence to standards and teachers' perceived importance of communication skills.
• To explore the temporal impact on skill transfer and adherence to standards.

Main Methods:

• A workshop (10 units) focused on teaching communication skills using simulated patients.
• Trained observers assessed 60 teaching sessions using a validated checklist.
• Data collected included time since workshop participation and teachers' ratings of communication skills importance.

Main Results:

• Over two-thirds of teaching standards were met by at least 75% of participating teachers.
• Fulfillment of standards significantly correlated with teachers' perceived importance of communication and social skills (p=.03).
• A slight, non-significant decrease in fulfilled standards was observed over time (p=.15).

Conclusions:

• A one-day faculty development workshop resulted in satisfactory adherence to basic teaching standards.
• Future programs should address more complex issues and focus on teachers' attitudes towards teaching.
• Continued evaluation of skill transfer, ideally with pre-tests or control groups, is recommended.