Teaching Clinical Precepting: A Faculty Development Workshop Using Role-Play

INTRODUCTION: Precepting is when a medical educator listens to a learner's presentation and must teach and assess the learner while rendering safe patient care. A popular framework for this type of educational encounter is the one-minute preceptor model, which can work for learners at all skill levels. This workshop was created to develop skills of all teaching faculty, regardless of medical specialty, in precepting. METHODS: The workshop is based on Kolb's experiential learning theory. A PowerPoint presentation delivers the core abstract concepts. The PowerPoint allows for discussion of participants' prior precepting experiences, including both challenges and successes. The workshop ends with role-plays for participants to practice their skills and a facilitated debrief to aid individual reflection. Twelve role-plays were created for use in the workshop; these were then reviewed by someone in the matching specialty to enhance authenticity. Participants completed a survey after the workshop to evaluate the session. RESULTS: This presentation was delivered 26 times to 392 participants at 16 different teaching hospitals. Twenty-one different medical specialties and subspecialties were represented. Ninety-seven percent of participants stated they would use the information presented in the workshop often or daily. There were conflicting comments about the role-plays. The negative comments centered around (a) personal difficulty participating in the role-plays and (b) the role-plays not being related to the learning. DISCUSSION: Discussion and role-play can be an effective way to instruct educators in use of the one-minute preceptor as a framework for teaching.