Presented By: Phoebe Li, Rutgers New Jersey Medical School
Co-Authors: Rijul Asri, Rutgers New Jersey Medical School
Sophia Chen, Rutgers New Jersey Medical School
Jeremy Grachan, Rutgers New Jersey Medical School
George Holan, Rutgers New Jersey Medical School
Christin Traba, Rutgers New Jersey Medical School

Purpose
Leadership skills are critical to the professional development of physicians. There is an increased demand for structured longitudinal experiential learning in this area within undergraduate medical education. A possible solution is to give students a defined leadership role with an appropriate level of responsibility, which increases perceived skill development due to active involvement. Rutgers New Jersey Medical School introduced a facilitator role for the anatomy small-group curriculum to provide leadership opportunities to pre-clerkship medical students.

Methods
This study explores the effects of a student facilitator role in anatomy small-group sessions on perceived leadership skill development. Anatomy is integrated throughout the organ system-based blocks of the pre-clerkship curriculum, and students (n=175) remain in the same anatomy groups (6 students per group) to discuss content, complete case studies, and take team assessments. Students are required to rotate through the facilitator role and lead their group during their designated sessions. The role of the facilitator is to focus on leading the discussions, not to teach content. This study uses a pre-course survey and post-course survey (to be completed in January 2024) voluntarily completed by students.

Results
61 students (34.9%) completed the pre-course survey. Preliminary data reveals that prior to the anatomy curriculum, 86.9% of students had experience working in a small-group learning format and 73.8% felt confident in their ability to lead a team. Students revealed that they do not feel confident addressing unengaged team members, with only 39.4% of students indicating that they had confidence in this skill.

Conclusions
Students need to develop their leadership skills with regards to interpersonal communication, especially when addressing unengaged peers. The implementation of a leadership role in a small-group setting could give students the opportunity to practice these skills and strengthen their professional development.