Near-peers improve patient safety training in the preclinical curriculum.

Background: Accrediting bodies require medical schools to teach patient safety and residents to develop teaching skills in patient safety. We created a patient safety course in the preclinical curriculum and used continuous quality improvement to make changes over time.

Objective: To assess the impact of resident teaching on student perceptions of a Patient Safety course.

Design: Using the Institute for Healthcare Improvement patient safety curriculum as a frame, the course included the seven IHI modules, large group lectures and small group facilitated discussions. Applying a social action methodology, we evaluated the course for four years (Y1-Y4).

Results: In Y1, Y2, Y3 and Y4, we distributed a course evaluation to each student (n = 184, 189, 191, and 184, respectively) and the response rate was 96, 97, 95 and 100%, respectively. Overall course quality, clarity of course goals and value of small group discussions increased in Y2 after the introduction of residents as small group facilitators. The value of residents and the overall value of the course increased in Y3 after we provided residents with small group facilitation training.

Conclusions: Preclinical students value the interaction with residents and may perceive the overall value of a course to be improved based on near-peer involvement. Residents gain valuable experience in small group facilitation and leadership.