A Single-School Assessment of the Successes of Medical Student Grand Rounds

Even as research experiences become increasingly important in undergraduate medical school curricula, students are provided with limited opportunities to showcase their work. Medical Student Grand Rounds (MSGR), an opportunity offered at a handful of medical schools across the country, gives aspiring physicians a stage to discuss their research and receive feedback in an inviting and casual setting. At the University of Colorado School of Medicine (CUSOM), 6 MSGR sessions were hosted over the course of an academic year. Presenters were medical students of any year who volunteered to give a 15 minute presentation on their work to their peers followed by a 5 minutes for audience questions. Interest in research, confidence of the presenter, and familiarity with research and methodologic topics was assessed by survey before and after the presentation, and showed that MSGR was a positive influence for improving presenter confidence as well as informing audience members and introducing them to novel research.