＂Appreciative Inquiry＂ Approach Cultivates Confident New Clinical Instructors, for Promoting ACGME/IOM Competencies in Taiwanese Community Hospitals

Expanding the number of residents at teaching hospitals is placing significant stress on existing faculties teaching the competences required by the American Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME)/Institute of Medicine (IOM). One result is the need to involve clinical teachers at community hospitals in residency ACGME/IOM competencies training. Purpose: This aim was to explore the effectiveness of the ＂appreciative inquiry (AI)＂ approach to train clinical educators who teach ACGME/IOM core competence to residents at community hospital. Methods: Differing from the ＂conventional＂ approach, the ＂AI＂ approach requires new clinical teachers to identify positive examples of good ACGME/ IOM competence practice and to promote these at community hospitals. Forty new clinical teachers were recruited from community hospitals and were randomly divided into group A (conventional approach) or B (AI approach). Results: Junior and female new clinical teachers in the ＂AI＂ group showed greater improvements in their confidence as educators after participating in the ACGME/IOM competencies instructor program. The post-course mentor-assessed/self-assessed competence improvement scores and between-course mentor-assessed educator scores of the new clinical teachers were significantly higher for the ＂AI＂ group compared to the ＂conventional＂ group. A good correlation was noted between the mentor-assessed and self-assessed competence improvement scores. Importantly, the ＂AI＂ group participants showed higher confidence in their ability to organize an ACGME/IOM training program at their institution after training. Conclusions: Compared to the ＂conventional＂ approach, the ＂AI＂ group is able to effectively train educators to a high level, allowing them to create effective strategies for developing core competences promotion at community hospitals.