Evaluating clinical teaching in the medicine clerkship: relationship of instructor experience and training setting to ratings of teaching effectiveness.

A clinical teaching assessment form was used to evaluate the teaching by faculty and residents in the required third-year medicine clerkship over a two-year period. Data from 1,627 forms were analyzed for differences between groups of teachers at different experience levels and for comparison of teaching programs at different training sites. The level of involvement of instructor with student correlated with ratings by the students. Among groups of instructors, chief medical residents received the highest overall ratings. Faculty were rated higher than first-, second-, and third-year residents when degree of involvement of instructor with student was high. Ratings among faculty of different academic ranks were not significantly different. Analysis of data from different clinical settings showed that the teaching efforts by clinical faculty members in the ambulatory setting received the highest ratings from students. Although increased involvement of instructors with students or other factors may have led to the higher ratings in the ambulatory setting, the results are encouraging for the use of ambulatory teaching sites for the basic medicine clerkship.