POLICY

It is the policy of the University of Tennessee Health Science Center (UTHSC) College of Medicine (COM) to ensure that residents, graduate students, postdoctoral fellows, and other non-faculty instructors in the medical education program, who supervise or teach medical students, are familiar with the learning objectives of the course or clerkship and are prepared for their roles in teaching and assessment. The medical school will provide resources to enhance residents’ and non-faculty instructors’ teaching and assessment skills, and will provide central monitoring of their participation in those opportunities.

RATIONALE AND PROCEDURE

1. Course orientation and provision of learning objectives
   1. It will be the responsibility of the pre-clerkship course/module director to provide resident and non-faculty instructors with an orientation to the overall goals and learning objectives of their respective course, and with the learning objectives specific to the part of the course in which they participate. This information can be distributed via email, virtually (e.g. Zoom), or during an in-person meeting.
   2. Distribution of the orientation materials, and the provision of learning objectives, will be documented by acknowledgement from residents and non-faculty instructors through the Medical Educators Resource Link (MERL).
   3. Compliance with this policy will be monitored by the Senior Assistant Dean for the Preclinical Curriculum and reported to the Course and Module Directors Curriculum Subcommittee (CMDCS).
2. Residents as teachers
   1. Residents serving as instructors in the pre-clerkship curriculum will be required to undergo institutional training as educators as required by their respective residency programs. Residents in programs that do not have a formal educator training curriculum are required to complete the Residents as Educators (RAE) course administered by the Teaching and Learning Center.
   2. Compliance with this policy is monitored and documented by the Teaching and Learning Center and results are sent to the residency program directors, the Senior Assistant Dean for the Clinical Sciences Curriculum and the Associate Dean for Medical Education.

APPROVAL HISTORY

Effective: 2/17/2020

Revised: 4/17/2023; 3/17/2025