CJEM
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Supervisors in postgraduate medical education may deliver different feedback for the same quality of performance. Residents may struggle to make sense of inconsistent and sometimes contradictory information. We sought to explore how residents experience feedback from different supervisors, how they process inconsistent information, and what factors influence their experiences. ⋯ The findings of this study show that while residents are regular consumers of feedback, not all feedback is used equally. Residents actively reconcile sometimes-contradictory feedback and must work to balance a general reluctance to discard feedback, while developing an understanding of its credibility. This work reinforces the importance of pedagogical relationships and identifies that facilitated reflection that explicitly acknowledges feedback inconsistencies may be important in the reconciliation process.