An assessment of barriers and facilitators of near-peer coaching on surgical clerkships: a mixed-methods study from resident’s perspective

We implemented a near-peer (resident–student) coaching intervention in 2021–2022 to improve clerkship students’ health system science (HSS) learning and application. This study thus sought to identify implementation barriers and potential facilitators of an effective HSS near-peer coaching program for clerkship students from the resident coach’s perspective at a single tertiary-care institution. A mixed-methods study design was employed. Thirty surgical residents volunteered to serve as HSS coaches for rotating third-year medical students during the 2021–2022 academic year. Coaches were asked to complete an exit survey, and a subset was purposefully sampled to complete semi-structured interviews. Transcripts were coded and analyzed with a framework method to identify emergent themes indicative of the barriers and facilitators of effective implementation of this near-peer HSS coaching program. A total of 20/30 (67