Faculty evaluation by residents in a family medicine residency program

Accountability in graduate medical education is dependent on the willingness of the residents and faculty to make their expectations and commitments explicit and to be held reponsible for fulfilling their commitments. In an effort to encourage accountability, residents in the University of Oklahoma Family Practice Residency Program evaluated the effectiveness of faculty members as learning facilitators. Several dimensions of the learning facilitator role were examined at a resident retreat and the results of the initial evaluations were discussed individually with each faculty member. A subsequent evaluation was conducted one year later, and a comparison of the results of the two evaluations suggests that such efforts can serve to stimulate modification of selected behaviors and thereby improve the quality of teaching in family practice residencies.