Obstetrics and gynaecology chief resident attitudes toward teaching junior residents under normal working conditions

Objectives  This study aimed to identify factors that chief residents believe impact the teaching of junior residents under normal working conditions and the areas in which they believe education on the role of resident as teacher would be beneficial. Methods  Obstetrics and gynaecology (O&G) chief residents were asked to rate the importance of teaching various skills, how often conflict situations arose, and to identify training that would be helpful through a national web-based survey. An e-mail was sent to coordinators of the Residency Review Committee (RRC) O&G residency programmes with a request that they forward the link to their chief residents three times from January through March 2006. Results  Responses were received from 204 postgraduate Year 4 (PGY4) residents (18% of all PGY4 residents) from 133 programmes (54% of all residency programmes) and 33 states. Teaching junior residents how to prioritise patient care and obtain critical information in an emergent situation was considered very to extremely important by 97%. Conflict situations with junior residents were reported to occur between one and five times by 41–58%; an additional 26–28% reported that these situations occurred six or more times. Residents felt it would be helpful to extremely helpful to have training in resolving conflicts that involved patient care (48–59%), as well as in resolving conflict among junior residents, communicating effectively with them and becoming an effective leader (65–78%). Conclusions  The skills that chief residents considered most important to teach junior residents involved direct patient care. Chief residents would like training in how to resolve conflict with, and among, junior residents, and in how to become an effective leader.