Bridging the Gap Between Educator and Learner: The Role of Psychological Safety in Medical Education

Physicians involved in medical student education must juggle the tasks of providing patient care, leading clinical teams, delivering feedback, and making assessments to support learner growth. Similarly, medical students must shift among providing patient care, obtaining evaluations, and demonstrating competency in their progress toward residency. The intersection of teaching and learning makes it difficult for clinician educators and students to separate feedback from evaluation. Students consider it risky to reveal a deficit, ask for help, or give a wrong answer to educators’ questions. Although these issues pose challenges to the clinical learning environment, educators can minimize such threats and maximize learning opportunities by promoting an environment of psychological safety. In this article, next in the series from the Council on Medical Student Education in Pediatrics, we provide suggestions and examples related to how clinician-educators can create a psychologically safe learning environment by using 3 core leadership tasks to balance educator...