Improving Feedback for Hematology and Oncology Fellows Via Virtual Workshops: Sustainability Analysis

Background

Effective feedback is an important tool in medical education for the learning and growth of trainees and for faculty development. It allows learners to remain on course in reaching competence in clinical, research, and interpersonal skills, yet the impact of teaching feedback during hematology-oncology training has not been studied in depth. To tackle the lack of effective constructive feedback within our hematology oncology fellowship program, we initiated a quality improvement (QI) project to identify barriers in delivering and receiving high-quality feedback in the program and to create a curriculum aimed at teaching fellows and faculty how to engage in more effective feedback conversations. In the initial phase of the pilot study, a pre-intervention survey identified the two main barriers for effective feedback in our program as discomfort in giving feedback and lack of protected time. A virtual workshop improved quality of feedback by addressing these barriers and providing tools necessary to give and receive constructive feedback. We aimed to highlight the sustainability of these interventions.

Methods

Utilizing the results of the pre-intervention survey, we built three 2-hour interactive virtual workshop sessions conducted through the ASCO Quality Training Program. Skills that were emphasized and practiced included appropriate set-up, low-inference observations, dialogic feedback conversations and a structured approach to reinforcing and modifying feedback. A follow up session was conducted three months later allowing for reinforcement of the skills. Post-intervention surveys were given immediately after the initial workshop and after the follow-up session. All surveys were identical employing Likert scale and open-ended questions. Weekly email reminders for protected feedback time were also set up. This project was developed through the ASH Medical Educators Institute.

Results

Eleven out of 15 attendees completed each of the questionnaires. At baseline, 81.8 % of the participants reported they do not have protected time to complete evaluations. This decreased to 63.6% immediately post-intervention and to 27.3% at the three-month point. Similarly, only 65.5% of the participants reported they were comfortable giving feedback prior to the workshop, increasing to 81.8% immediately after the intervention and was sustained at 81.8% at three months. Half of the participants reported that the feedback was not actionable in the initial questionnaire, decreasing to 10% post-intervention. Majority of the participants agreed that the workshop helped address barriers for effective feedback in our program.

Conclusions

This study showed the sustainability of positive changes, even during the COVID-19 pandemic, for giving and receiving quality feedback implemented in our fellowship program. Its outcomes are salient given that it utilizes a simple intervention that could be expanded to other training programs as feedback is a systemic problem in medicine. It also underscores the importance of formal workshops in overcoming barriers for effective feedback. Limitations of this QI study include the small sample size and single-institutional design. Our future goals include incorporating a formal yearly curriculum assigning weekly protected time for feedback to ensure these results are sustainable and reproducible with incoming fellows.