“I’d be watching him contour till 10 o’clock at night”: Understanding Tensions between Teaching Methods and Learning Needs in Healthcare Apprenticeship

Abstract

Apprenticeship is the predominant method for transferring specialized medical skills, yet the inter-dynamics between faculty and residents, including methods of feedback exchange are under-explored. We specifically investigate contouring: outlining tumors in preparation for radiotherapy, a critical skill that when performed subpar, severely degrades patient survival. Interviews and design-thinking workshops (N = four faculty; six residents) revealed misalignment between teaching methods and residents who desired timely, relevant, and diverse feedback. We further discuss reasons: overlapping learning content and strategies to ease tensions between clinical and teaching duties, and lack of support for exchange of cognitive processes. The follow-up survey study (N = 67 practitioners from 31 countries), which contained annotation and sketching tasks, provided diverse perspective over effective feedback elements. We lastly present sociotechnical implications in supporting the teaching duties of the faculty and the cognitive models of learners, such as systematically leveraging senior learners in providing case-based guidance and supporting double-sided flow of cognitive information via in-situ video snippets.

Matin Yarmand

Ph.D. Student

Chen Chen

Ph.D. Candidate

Nadir Weibel

Professor of Computer Science and Engineering