Background/Purpose: Rheumatology fellowship programs and program directors (PDs) are dedicated to didactic and clinical training of their fellows. Throughout fellowship training, fellows serve as teachers for residents, medical students, patients and families. However, structured teaching programs through which fellows themselves can acquire teaching skills are limited. Rheumatology program directors’ interest in developing structured teaching programs has not been previously evaluated.

Methods: We conducted an in-person needs assessment of Rheumatology PDs attending the 2017 American College of Rheumatology national conference. The survey addressed questions regarding the availability of and interest in structured teaching programs for fellows.

Results: Fifty-seven of 94 Rheumatology PDs attending the meeting completed the survey (response rate 60.6%). The majority of PD’s had >15 years of experience (38%) followed by 29% with 11-15 years of experience. Only 28% of programs required structured training in education and 33% of programs reported not having any structured training in teaching for their fellows. Over half of PDs (55%) reported that fellows are not trained in how to give feedback to medical students or residents, but almost all PDs (98.3%) believe that “fellows are a valuable resource for medical student/resident learning.” Additionally, majority of PDs (84%) agreed that [their] fellows could use additional instruction in teaching skills and 90% noted that this would be an asset to fellows for their future careers. Our survey also identified barriers to implementing teacher training programs as only 55.1% of PDs agreed that fellows have time for such programs and only 39.7% agreed that faculty have time to supervise fellow teaching.

Conclusion: This is the first evaluation of Rheumatology program directors’ opinions regarding opportunities for their fellows to learn teaching and feedback skills. Less than a third of respondents reported having required structured training in education in their programs. PDs are interested in providing structured training opportunities on how to teach for fellows as they believe this will be an asset in their future careers. However, despite the need and interest in creating structured opportunities for teaching fellows how to teach, there are concerns about time available within the fellowship for fellows to receive this training, as well as time for faculty members to provide it. Future research based on this needs assessment should involve an efficient way to create a fellows-as-teachers curriculum.

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ACR Meeting Abstracts - https://acrabstracts.org/abstract/needs-assessment-of-a-structured-program-for-fellows-as-teachers-rheumatology-program-directors-perspective/