Effective Feedback, An Essential Component of All Stages in Medical Education

Feedback as a teaching-learning strategy has been present in medical education for a few decades. Nonetheless, its application across the globe is considered suboptimal at best. Characteristics, conventions and recommendations for its delivery have been emphasized over the years in the literature available, but new approaches highlight the need to evaluate feedback with a greater focus on the social interaction involved and the actual impact it has on the learning process of students. Modern competency-based medical programs, with its stakeholders, staff members and educators, require a serious commitment towards its proper implementation, through robust frameworks and monitoring systems, designed according to every institution’s particular needs. Preceptors and students need to be properly trained and empowered in this skill, for most effective and successful results in improving learning and performance. This effort is fundamental for trainees to acquire clinical competence according to defined standards, guarantee preparedness to work in unsupervised practice and ensure patient welfare.