What Kind of Preceptor Are You?
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WYKYK…
Every single one of us has had a bad learning experience.
It might have been a confrontational teacher, an unsupportive preceptor, or a toxic class environment. The experiences might range from a mild insult to getting rapped on the knuckles with a pointer...but we all have them somewhere in our past.
This has been on my mind recently because I've noticed a big difference in how people respond to a bad learning experience (or any bad experience, really).
Some people pay the bad experiences forward.
I know some people that cried every day during their residency, and they fully believe that their residents should cry every day. I know people that always assume the worst intentions in their students. I know some teachers that treat every encounter with their students as a sort of pissing contest about who holds the power in the relationship.
And on the other side of the coin, I know people that use bad experiences as fuel.
From their antagonistic teacher, they learned exactly how they DON'T want to teach students.
I know people who felt like their preceptor rolled them under the bus to the medical team...so they've sworn not to do it to their own students. I know professors that write new questions for every single test because their teachers wouldn't let them review their exams out of fear that "they'd share the answers with next year's students."
Each of us has a unique past filled with good and bad experiences. And these experiences mold you, bit by bit, into the person you are today. Often, this happens subconsciously. You don't realize that you're doing things today based on lingering resentment you have from something in your past.
But when it comes to mentoring, teaching, and precepting, I'd challenge you to critically examine some of your stances.
Are you denying your student's request to go to a professional conference because your preceptor wouldn't let you go? Or, have you considered that the right conference might be more beneficial to their development than 2 days of your rotation?
Do you assume that your student is lazy, deceitful, and uninterested in learning because your teacher treated you that way? Or do you assume best intentions to create a non-combative environment?
Did you have a professor that forgot what it was like to be a student, treated you like an idiot, and belittled you? Are you doing the same thing right now to your student? Or do you remember how hard it is to learn things for the first time? Do you have the patience to realize that your years of experience in your specialty is not an apples-to-apples comparison to a student's 6-week module during their P3 year?
We aren't able to control what happens to us, but we do control how we RESPOND to it. We get to decide what happens next. You can approach your students with respect and dignity, even if you received none from your teachers.
Thanks for coming to my TED Talk.
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