The Feedback You Give and Receive: Tips for Making It More Effective

By Carla Todaro, MD, from the IARS, AUA and SOCCA 2019 Annual Meetings*

The AUA Educational Advisory Board Panel II: The Science of Effective Feedback, moderated by Keith Baker MD, PhD, Massachusetts General Hospital, provided tools for more effectively and constructively giving and receiving feedback in a wide variety of situations a health professional may face.

Rebecca Minehart, MD, MSHPEd, Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts General Hospital, opened the session with a presentation focused on “Goal Orientation: Constructing Feedback as Useful.”

What is the goal orientation? An orientation toward developing or demonstrating one’s ability.

Goal type and trainee goal orientation must be considered during curriculum development to maximize educational value. This is an effective behavior change technique that has the potential to be considered a fundamental component of successful formative interventions.

The types of goal orientation include intrapersonal/interpersonal, approach/avoid, mastery avoidance (intrapersonal) due to fear, and performance avoidance (interpersonal) due to anxiety. Task engagement and metacognition among trainees allows for personal advancement leading to self-improvement and self-validation.

The second speaker, Aranya Bagchi, MD, Harvard Medical School, discussed, “The Neuroscience of Negative Feedback and Why We Can Become Deaf to It.”

Receiving negative feedback can create cognitive dissonance because what is created at this point is an optimism bias. We learn less from negative comments. It is important consequently to build consistency and coherency.

The last presentation from Douglas Raines, MD, Massachusetts General Hospital, was dedicated to the topic, “So Your Paper was Rejected: A Practical Example of Managing Negative Feedback.” He emphasized the importance of not getting discouraged and giving up. He provided examples of famous people who have been rejected including Krebs, Darwin and Madonna.

He provided tips on how to overcome the depression phase and moving forward to a new submission. Be sure to re-edit your manuscript and read the comments carefully because this will help to improve your manuscript.

He reminded the audience to not take a rejection personally as a rejected manuscript today can always be an accepted and published article tomorrow after adequate changes and improvements are made.

*Coverage from the AUA Educational Advisory Board Panel II: The Science of Effective Feedback, moderated by Keith Baker MD, PhD, during the AUA 2019 Annual Meeting