Feedback is good or bad? Medical residents’ points of view on feedback in clinical education

Introduction: feedback is very important in education and can help qualityin the training process and orient the trainees in clinical contexts. this studyaimed to assess the residents’ points of view about feedback in clinical educationat shiraz university of medical sciences.methods: the sample of this study included 170 medical residents attendingmedical workshops in shiraz university of medical sciences. the residents filleda valid and reliable questionnaire containing 21 items on their perceptions ofthe feedback they got throughout the workshops. the data were analyzed usingspss version 14.results: the study revealed that residents, generally, have a positive perceptionof feedback in their training. the highest score belonged to the items such as“feedback was applicable to future work”, “feedback corrected my behavior”,“feedback worked as a motivation for education” and “feedback was specific inone subject”. residents who had a negative feedback experience also increasedtheir efforts to learn. the surgery residents acquired the highest scores whileradiology residents got the lowest. the difference between these groups wasstatistically significant (p = 0.000).conclusion: the highest mean score belonged to internal medicine residents.this shows that residents believe that obstetrics & gynecology ward is a ward inwhich the formative assessment is much more powerful in comparison to theother three major wards. the surgery ward received the lowest score for formativeassessment and this shows that the feedback in surgery ward is very low.