Internal Medicine Student Chief Elective

Background: With increasing patient care responsibilities, administrative work and education demands, physicians may find it challenging to provide high-quality and engaging clinical education to third-year medical students on clerkships. Fourth-year students in the role of near-peer teachers can help fill this role, but they often also have competing responsibilities.

Approach: A 4-week Internal Medicine Student Chief (Student Chief) elective was created, designed such that fourth-year students would apply for dedicated time to serve as student leaders, coaches and educators for the third-year students on the Internal Medicine clerkship. They were provided an asynchronous medical education curriculum and conducted their own Medicine subject exam reviews, case conferences and feedback sessions.

Evaluation: Course evaluations by clerkship students did not detect a significant difference between the "quality" of the Internal Medicine clerkship and the "amount of formative feedback" from pre-post Student Chief elective introduction. Clerkship students' feedback regarding their interactions with and the ratings of the Student Chief, however, were excellent. Evaluations by the Student Chief suggested that the course provided rich opportunities for students interested in medical education to learn and practice skills in teaching, mentoring and coaching of Internal Medicine clerkship students.

Implications: Given overwhelmingly positive feedback, the Student Chief elective has continued. Student Chief responsibilities evolved based on feedback, and the Student Chiefs themselves develop their own learning goals for their experience. Future studies could include a more longitudinal evaluation of the program, expanding the scope of the Student Chief experience to other specialties and publication of an implementation toolkit.