The Willingness and Influencing Factors of Standardized Training Instructors for General Practitioners to Conduct Teaching Clinics

Abstract

Background The implementation of standardized teaching clinic activities by the faculty of standardized training of general practice residents (hereinafter referred to as residency training) is a key link in the cultivation of qualified general practitioners. And in July 2021, the Chinese Physicians' Association organized experts to revise the Specification for General Practice Teaching Clinic for Standardized Training of Residents in the Specialty of General Practice (for Trial Implementation), which is referenced by all the residency training bases of general practice across the country to carry out the teaching clinic. However, at this stage, the implementation of teaching clinic in each residency training base is still in the exploratory stage, and the degree of attention is insufficient, and the phenomenon of low quality and irregularity in the form of teaching clinic prevails. Objective To understand the current situation and influencing factors on the willingness of general practice residency faculty to conduct teaching clinics, not only to analyze the difficulties and confusions in conducting teaching clinics, but also provide reflections and recommendations. Methods From October 2021 to November 2023, a survey was conducted among general practitioners who participated in the provincial-level general practice residency training programs for regular and key instructors in Guangdong Province. A self-designed questionnaire was used to collect data from the included instructors, covering their basic information, work situation, and their willingness to teach. The electronic questionnaire was created using the "Questionnaire Star" platform, which also facilitated the online distribution and collection of the survey. Results The average age of general practice faculty was (40.7±14.1) years, 724 (72.18%) faculty members' institutions had general practice teaching clinics, 792 (78.96%) had a desire to teach, 710 (70.79%) had no experience in teaching, 904 (90.13%) had self-assessed their competence in teaching as a score of 60-89, and 583 (58.13%) had received no general practice teaching clinic faculty training, 462 (46.06%) expected faculty training to be conducted in the form of a combination of multiple types of training, 417 (41.58%) and 309 (30.81%), respectively, believed that the teaching difficulty of general practice teaching clinics was to instruct general practice residents to independently receive patients in the general practice clinic and to teach in a tiered manner, and 377 (37.59%) believed that the most difficult teaching objective to achieve was to instruct general practice residents in general practice clinical thinking and improve their clinical decision-making skills, 216 (21.54%) believed that the most needed training component for general practice residents was consultation skills, and 456 (45.46%) believed that the reason their institution did not/would not conduct a teaching clinic was lack of time. Also, the results of the multifactorial logistic regression analysis showed that the availability of general practice teaching clinics at the institution where they are located, experience in teaching, self-assessment of teaching competence, and acceptance of faculty training in general practice teaching clinics were the factors influencing the willingness to teach in general practice faculty teaching clinics (P<0.05) . Conclusion Most of the general practice resident training faculty are willing to carry out general practice teaching clinics, but there are difficulties such as insufficient experience in teaching, training in teaching, and ability in teaching. So it is recommended to optimize and standardize general practice teaching clinics, strengthen the training of general practice concepts for general practice teaching clinic faculty, strengthen incentives for teaching, and improve the monitoring and feedback mechanism for resident faculty in order to improve the quality of general practice teaching clinics.

Keywords

• general practice|education, medicine|standardized training for resident physicians|instructors|teaching clinic