Abstract
Purpose
Coaching in medical education facilitates learners’ growth and development through feedback, goal-setting and support. This study explored how coaching relationships evolve throughout medical school and the impact of longitudinal coaching relationships on medical students’ approach to feedback and goal setting in the clinical years.
Method
In this qualitative study using a constructivist paradigm, authors purposively sampled 15 senior medical students at University of California, San Francisco, to participate in individual semi-structured interviews (October–November 2021). The authors used an inductive approach to thematic analysis.
Results
The authors identified four themes: First, the student-coach relationship deepened over the course of medical school. Second, students identified factors that sustained and strengthened the student-coach relationship over time: a strong foundation to the relationship, the non-evaluative nature of the relationship, coach supportiveness and responsiveness, and coach knowledge of the institutional landscape. Third, coaches provided individualized advice, assessed trajectory, and guided feedback interpretation. Lastly, students applied skills of soliciting and responding to feedback and creating learning goals, originally learned through coaching experience.
Conclusions
Coaching relationships, grounded in trust, evolve to meet students’ changing needs as they grow into physicians. Students apply feedback and goal-setting skills learned with the coach in clinical settings with other supervisors.
Acknowledgments
The authors wish to thank the Education Scholarship Conference (ESCape) at UCSF for their critique of the manuscript draft.
Data sharing
The data that support the findings of this study are available on request from the corresponding author, KEH. The data are not publicly available due to contents that could compromise the privacy of research participants.
Disclosure statement
The authors report no conflict of interest.
Geolocation information
This study was conducted in the United States.
Additional information
Funding
Notes on contributors
Leslie Bernal Charondo
Leslie Bernal Charondo is a Urology resident, Department of Urology, University of California, Davis, Davis, California.
Leslie Sheu
Leslie Sheu is an internal medicine practitioner, Private Medical, Menlo Park, CA.
Brian M. Bakke
Brian M. Bakke is an Internal Medicine resident, Department of Medicine, University of California, San Francisco, San Francisco, California.
Karen E. Hauer
Karen E. Hauer is associate dean for competency assessment and professional standards and professor, Department of Medicine, University of California, San Francisco, San Francisco, California.