Adapting Feedback to Individual Residents: An Examination of Preceptor Challenges and Approaches

Feedback conversations between preceptors and residents usually occur in closed settings. Little is known about how preceptors address the challenges posed by residents with different skill sets, performance levels, and personal contexts.

This study explored the challenges that preceptors experienced and approaches taken in adapting feedback conversations to individual residents.

In 2015, 18 preceptors participated in feedback simulations portraying residents with variations in skill, insight, confidence, and distress, followed by debriefing of the feedback conversation with a facilitator. These interactions were recorded, transcribed, and analyzed using thematic and framework analysis.

The preceptors encountered common challenges with feedback conversations, including uncertainty in how to individualize feedback to residents and how to navigate tensions between resident- and preceptor-identified goals. Preceptors questioned their ability to enhance skills for highly performing residents, whether they could be directive when residents had insight gaps, how they could reframe the perceptions of the overly confident resident, and whether they should offer support to emotionally distressed residents or provide feedback about performance. Preceptors adapted their approach to feedback, drawing on techniques of coaching for highly performing residents, directing for residents with insight gaps, mediation with overly confident residents, and mentoring with emotionally distressed residents.

Examining the feedback challenges preceptors encounter and the approaches taken to adapt feedback to individual residents can provide insight into how preceptors meet the challenges of competency-based medical education, in which frequent, focused feedback is essential for residents to achieve educational milestones and entrustable professional activity expectations.