By Mardi O’Keefe

Feedback is part of internship. You will receive it formally through assessments and informally from registrars, consultants and other members of the team. But some of the most useful feedback can be the feedback you actively seek along the way.

Dr Fadh Yusof recently explored how to manage feedback when it comes your way, including feedback that may be difficult to hear.

Another important skill is learning how to actively seek feedback – and use it to guide your development. Here are some tips for going about it.

Feedback is not just about what you are doing wrong

We often associate feedback with criticism or something that happens when there is a problem. But useful feedback should help you understand what you are doing well, and what you could do differently.

Being told that you provided a clear clinical handover, escalated a concern appropriately or made a well-structured referral is valuable. It helps you identify behaviours to repeat.

Similarly, being told that you need to be ‘more organised’ or ‘more concise’ is only useful if you understand what that means in practice. The best feedback is specific and focused on something you can actually do something about.



Ask specific questions to get specific answers

Broad questions liked “How am I going?” often generate broad answers: “Fine”, “You’re doing well” or “Keep doing what you're doing.”

Reassuring perhaps, but not particularly useful for learning.

Instead, think about something you are currently trying to improve and ask about that. You might ask:

  • “Is there one thing I could do to make the way I present patients on the ward round clearer and more concise?”

  • “Was that handover clear or was there information I could have left out?”

  • “Was there anything I could have done differently when I escalated that patient?”

  • “What is one thing you think I should work on before my next rotation?”

Asking for one thing makes it easier for someone to give you specific feedback. It also gives you something manageable to work on.



If the feedback is vague, ask for more

Not all feedback will be delivered perfectly. You might be told that you need to be ‘more organised’, ‘more confident’ or ‘work on your communication’.

If you are not sure what that means, ask for an example. What did they observe? What would they suggest you do differently? What would better look like in that situation?

You are not challenging the feedback. You are trying to understand it well enough to use it.

Our Feedback 101 Leadership Insights (link to at the end) describe a useful approach called Situation-Behaviour-Impact. It focuses feedback on the situation, the behaviour that was observed and the impact that behaviour had.

This shifts the focus away from a judgement about you as a person and towards behaviours that can be repeated or changed.



Choose your moment

Think about who has actually seen you do the work. A registrar who has worked alongside you for several shifts may be able to give you more useful feedback than someone who has had limited contact with you.

Timing matters too. You do not need a formal meeting. Look for small opportunities at the end of a shift, following a ward round, after making a referral or after you have managed something new or difficult.

Sometimes two minutes of specific feedback from someone who has observed your work is all you need.

 

Do something with it

The value of feedback comes from what happens next.  Choose one practical thing to work on. Try it and then seek feedback again.

If you have been working on making your clinical handover more concise, for example, you might ask a few days later: “I've been working on structuring my handover more clearly. Was that better?”

You have now turned feedback into a learning cycle: ask, understand, try something different and check again.



Want to learn more?

Read Dr Fadh Yusof’s article on Managing feedback during internship for practical advice on receiving and responding to feedback.

For a deeper dive into how to seek, give and receive useful feedback, read AMA Victoria’s Feedback 101 Leadership Insights: The importance of feedback for a learning culture – Part 1 and Part 2.

Mardi O’Keefe is the Director of Engagement & Professional Growth at AMA Victoria.