Asking learners questions #meded

I am currently reading Peak Performance a book about the processes that lead to our best performance.  While the book has a general focus on athletics, it discusses principles and studies from many fields.  This quote struck me as very important for medical education. The most effective tutoring systems, on the other hand, all shared one thing: They delayed instruction until students reached the point of failure. Growth comes at the point of resistance. Skills come from struggle. While many have argued against pimping, asking questions help our learners grow.  The problem here is distinguishing pimping from safe questioning. The definition of medical pimping varies by service, pimper, pimpee, and local custom.  Some learners label anyone who asks a lot of questions as a pimp artist.  Others restrict this label to those who ask questions for the primary purpose of shaming the learner. At my institution, we who ask many questions are considered pimpers, but not malignant pimpers. Regardless of labels, most learners appreciate being stretched with questions about important topics.  When we ask questions we help define the limits of the learners’ knowledge, and then we can help them extend their limits. As Dr. Kelley Skeff (one of my medical education heroes) told me many years ago, when you create just the proper level of anxiety, learning is about to occur. Through questioning we make education active rather than passive.  The learners become engaged because we dem...
Source: DB's Medical Rants - Category: Internal Medicine Authors: Tags: Medical Rants Source Type: blogs