This article links Roald Dahls classic children’s story The BFG (Big Friendly Giant) to feedback. The connection to one of my favourite writers for children hooked me in.
I was left with a few reflections.
Firstly that literature works as a motivator for learning. For me, the actual analogy didn’t work so well but I can appreciate that it was very vivid for the author. This led me to wonder again how we make the most of highly personalised individualised learning experiences from literature. The same must surely be true of clinical vignettes as well as real clinical encounters. No simple answers to this one but I was inspired to think more about it!
On the subject of feedback, I considered the encouragement to have a respectful conversation in which there is true dialogue to be a helpful reminder. The content doesn’t claim to be new but if a reminder to challenge and support students and to carefully consider your intent when giving feedback and notice how it is being received reaches out to another clinician then so much the better.
This was also my first foray into AMEE MedEdPublish, an open access e-journal. The peer review process starts after publication and this requires active participation from the academic community. This requires the writing to be motivating …. which is where I came into his blog today …
And finally, I was left wondering what more Roald Dahl has to teach us in medical education. Surely Matilda and her teachers Miss Trunchbull and Miss Honey have something to say about the teaching culture in the clinical environment?
Reference: Zaharias G. A narrative approach to giving feedback OR everything I know about feedback I learnt for The BFG. MedEdPublish. 2016 http://dx.doi.org/10.15694/