Required training for OCOM clinical preceptors. Four short modules designed for your schedule — accessible from any device, completable at your own pace.
Complete all four modules at your own pace. Each module includes a short reading, a practice scenario, and a brief completion form. A downloadable PDF quick reference card is available at the end of each module.
Thank you for partnering with Orlando College of Osteopathic Medicine. The clinical experiences you provide are among the most formative in our students’ education, and we are grateful for your commitment to their growth. This hub was designed with your schedule in mind — short, practical, and directly relevant to your experience with our students.
The first day of a rotation sets the tone for everything that follows. Research in clinical medical education consistently shows that students who receive a structured orientation — covering workspace, expectations, and communication norms — have stronger learning outcomes and fewer mid-rotation concerns. This module walks you through exactly what to have in place before your OCOM student arrives and what to cover in your first conversation with them.
A 10-minute structured conversation on Day 1 prevents most mid-rotation problems. Students who know the rules perform better and ask better questions. Cover these five things:
Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 prohibits sex-based discrimination — including sexual harassment and sexual misconduct — in educational programs. As a clinical preceptor, you are part of OCOM’s educational community even though you work off-campus. That means Title IX applies in your clinic whenever an OCOM student is present.
Research in medical education consistently shows that students improve fastest when they receive feedback that is specific, timely, and tied to observable behavior. “Good job today” is encouraging. “Here is what you did well and here is what to do differently next time” is transformative. The BOSS framework gives you a simple, repeatable structure to make every piece of feedback count.
“Good work today. Keep it up. Try to be more confident with patients.”
The student does not know what was good, what confidence looks like in practice, or what to change tomorrow.
“When presenting, you listed your differential without explaining your reasoning. Next time walk me through your thinking step by step. Your physical exam was thorough — you did not miss a single key finding.”
The student knows exactly what happened, why it matters, and what to do differently.
“The relationship between a preceptor and a medical student is one of the most formative in a physician’s training. You are not just teaching clinical skills — you are modeling what it means to be a physician.”
— Office of Faculty Development, OCOM
Most rotation concerns are manageable when identified early. Early contact with OCOM’s Office of Clinical Education is not punitive — it is how we support both you and the student toward a better outcome.
Every OCOM student arrives on rotation with a set of learning objectives specific to your specialty. These objectives define what they are expected to demonstrate by the end of the rotation and form the basis of their evaluation. Understanding these expectations helps you align your teaching and feedback with what matters most for their progress.
Being an excellent clinician and being an excellent preceptor draw on overlapping but distinct skills. Most physicians were never formally taught how to teach — they learned by watching their own mentors and adapting over time. This module gives you a practical foundation so you can be intentional about your teaching from day one, rather than learning exclusively by trial and error.
“The best preceptors are not necessarily the most experienced clinicians — they are the ones who are most intentional about making their thinking visible to learners.”
— Office of Faculty Development, OCOM
Expert clinicians often reason automatically — pattern recognition happens so fast it becomes invisible. For students, watching an expert work can feel like watching a magician: the right answer appears, but the process is opaque. Teaching clinical reasoning means slowing down and making the invisible visible. This is uncomfortable at first but becomes one of the most rewarding aspects of precepting.
You do not need protected teaching time to teach clinical reasoning. Every patient encounter contains a teachable moment. The key is structure — a brief, focused exchange that takes 60 to 90 seconds and leaves the student with one clear takeaway.
Bedside teaching has been central to medical education for over a century — and for good reason. No simulation can replicate the complexity of a real patient encounter. Yet many preceptors avoid teaching at the bedside because it feels inefficient or risky. This module gives you a practical framework for making bedside teaching purposeful, safe, and time-efficient.
Many clinical preceptors find themselves supervising students on rotations that are adjacent to — but not squarely within — their primary specialty. A family medicine physician may precept a student on a surgery rotation. An internist may supervise students rotating through a subspecialty clinic. A hospitalist may find their student is there for a neurology credit. This is common, and it creates a specific kind of anxiety: “What if the student asks me something I do not know?”
This module addresses that anxiety directly. The goal is not to make you an expert in every specialty — it is to give you a framework for teaching effectively even when the content is not your primary area. Because here is the truth that experienced preceptors know: the most important things you are teaching are not specialty-specific at all.
“A great preceptor in an unfamiliar specialty is still teaching clinical reasoning, professionalism, patient communication, and how to handle uncertainty. Those skills do not change when the diagnosis does.”
— Office of Faculty Development, OCOM
Before we talk about how to manage knowledge gaps, it helps to recognize how much of what you already do transfers perfectly across specialties. The table below organizes clinical teaching competencies by how specialty-dependent they are. Most of what makes a great preceptor is in the left column.
| Teaching skill | Specialty-dependent? | What this looks like in practice |
|---|---|---|
| Clinical reasoning | Low | How to build a differential, test hypotheses, and manage diagnostic uncertainty — these principles are universal |
| Patient communication | Low | History-taking, delivering news, shared decision-making — modeled the same way across every specialty |
| Feedback delivery | Low | BOSS framework applies identically regardless of the clinical setting |
| Professionalism modeling | Low | How you treat patients, staff, and colleagues — always on display, always teaching |
| Documentation standards | Medium | Format varies but principles of clear, accurate clinical writing transfer well |
| Physical examination | Medium | Core exam skills transfer; specialty-specific maneuvers may require you to learn alongside the student |
| Specialty-specific procedures | High | Be transparent about your scope — refer students to specialty-specific resources for technical details |
| Subspecialty diagnosis criteria | High | Acknowledge gaps openly and model how to look things up appropriately |
The low specialty-dependence skills are also the hardest to learn and the most important for a physician’s career. When you teach clinical reasoning, patient communication, and professionalism — even in an unfamiliar specialty — you are teaching the things that matter most.
The fear of not knowing something in front of a student is one of the most common barriers to cross-specialty precepting. Here is a reframe that experienced preceptors find liberating: a knowledge gap, handled well, is one of the most powerful teaching moments you will ever have. It models exactly what you want students to do — recognize what they do not know, say so honestly, and know how to find the answer.
Work through this case at your own pace. Read the scenario, reflect on each question, then reveal the suggested approach. There are no wrong answers — the goal is to think through the situation before seeing how an experienced preceptor might handle it.
This section gives you a practical set of tools to use before, during, and after any cross-specialty teaching encounter. Work through the pre-rotation checklist below, then review the quick-reference strategies you can pull up on your phone between patients.