Department of Surgery

Fourth-year medical students are required to complete an acting internship (AI) in either Surgery or Obstetrics-Gynecology. The students who opt to take a surgery AI experience a hands-on, clinically oriented acting internship. Evaluation methods include subjective evaluation by faculty preceptors and an end-of-clerkship examination. 

Click here for 2009-2010 Syllabus (Adobe Acrobat required for download)

Faculty members are expected to give feedback to medical students at the end of each two-week or four-week surgical rotation during the surgery clerkship.

The purpose of the feedback session is to provide face-to-face feedback about the student’s performance at the conclusion of each 2-week or 4-week surgical rotation. The student’s strengths as well as areas of needed improvement are to be discussed.

It is important to note that the feedback sessions with students are not to be “gripe sessions” in which students argue for grade changes. The primary purpose of each session is to help the student understand his/her strengths and weaknesses as a “physician-in-training.” Debating whether a student should have received an “85” rather than an “75” is an inappropriate topic of discussion for the feedback session. We estimate that the feedback sessions will be from 5 to 15 minutes in duration.

Suggested format for the feedback session with the clerkship student.

1. Prepare for feedback session
2. Greet student and explain purpose and goals of meeting.
3. Student Self-Critique
4. Be alert for discrepancies between what you have just learned from the student’s self-critique and what you are about to say. 
5. Provide Student with Positive Feedback.
6. Provide negative feedback.
7. Check for overall understanding and the student’s reaction.
8. Conclude the session in a positive manner.