New Teaching Feedback Tool
MeFB (Medical FeedBack, medcialfeedback.org) is a free, online tool that has been developed by two Edinburgh trainees for health professionals to collect feedback after teaching.
Trainees are required to evidence teaching activities in their portfolios and at interviews. Traditionally, feedback for teaching is collected on paper forms, requiring the tutor to produce, print, distribute and collate forms for each teaching event. This results in feedback forms going missing or feedback not being collected at all. MeFB solves all of these issues.
Tutors simply register once with the site for free*. When they teach, they ask learners to visit medicalfeedback.org and fill in the short feedback form on the spot. The site collates and analyses the feedback and produces a summary certificate for the tutor to include in their portfolio. There is no requirement for learners to register with the site.
MeFB has pre-made feedback forms for many kinds of teaching, including online lectures and tutorials, bedside teaching, clinical skills and simulation teaching. Feedback forms take no more than 3 minutes to complete and all have Kirkpatrick Level 2 questions to assess learning. For further ease of use, tutors can, if they wish, create QR codes and custom links in advance of a tutorial. These shortcuts direct learners straight to a feedback form prefilled with tutorial information, making the learners’ experience even easier.
Other features include the ability to have multiple tutors receive the same feedback for a single tutorial and grouping or collating of multiple teaching events to create a summary certificate (eg all bed-side teaching provided in a semester).
Since its launch in 2019, MeFB has become extremely popular with over 1200 users across the country who have collected over 11,500 feedback forms. It has been adopted by NHS Borders as their feedback tool for all formal teaching and is featured in the Edinburgh Clinical Educator Programme’s “Planning and Evaluating your Teaching” workshop. MeFB has users throughout the UK and Ireland and we would love to see its use continue to spread to make collecting feedback easier for everyone.
Institutional accounts (also free) are also available for societies, health boards, hospitals, or other groups to use for their teaching.
Please contact us if you would like further information at help@medicalfeedback.org.
Aoife Duignan (ST4 Geriatric Medicine) and Mathew Lyons (CT2 Anaesthetics)
Follow us on Twitter @_mefb
*Disclaimer: This is a simple, free tool created by two trainees in South East Scotland to make trainees’ lives easier! It is not a commercial product and is not endorsed by NHS, NES Digital or any health board. Only minimal personal information is stored, we have robust privacy policy in place and data are stored on a secure UK server. This article does not imply endorsement by NHS Scotland.