235 - Short-Term Impact of a Trainee-Driven Educational Initiative in Pediatric Critical Care Medicine

Poster Number: 235
Publication Number: 235.332

Lauren Alessi, Helen DeVos Children's Hospital, Rockford, MI, United States; Andrea Scioscia, UPMC Childrens Hospital of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA, United States; Margaret O. Lewen, UPMC Childrens Hospital of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA, United States; Caitlin McNamara, UPMC, PITTSBURGH, PA, United States; Dana Fuhrman, UPMC, Pittsburgh, PA, United States

Background: Trainee education is paramount to developing skilled clinicians. For high-volume, clinically demanding fellowships, bedside teaching and hands-on experiences are invaluable. However, experiential education can be difficult to balance with a formalized educational curriculum. Furthermore, these curricula are typically designed by faculty.

Objective: We hypothesized that a trainee-driven curriculum that was designed by those receiving the education, informed by a needs assessment, and tailored to subspecialty board specifications would improve trainee satisfaction.

Design/Methods: This is an observational study of a pediatric critical care medicine fellowship training program at a quaternary care children’s hospital. With faculty oversight, a trainee education team comprised of fellow representatives from each level of training developed a structured, board-focused education curriculum, and determined the topic and speaker for each session. Using descriptive statistics and Likert scales, we examined the level of satisfaction of fellows one year before and after implementation of the new curriculum.

Results: The pre- and post-intervention surveys were completed by 100% (14/14) and 72% (10/14) of fellows, respectively. The overall level of satisfaction improved between our two time points, with all fellows being at least somewhat satisfied following the implementation of the program (Figure 1). The improvement in satisfaction was consistent among all three levels of training, most notably among PGY5 trainees, 33% of whom were satisfied prior to the intervention and 100% following the intervention. Preparedness for boards, availability of recorded lectures, accessibility of the schedule, ability to obtain related resources, and likelihood to recommend this curriculum to other programs (Figure 2) also increased after one year of implementing our fellow-designed curriculum.Conclusion(s): To our knowledge, this is the first trainee-designed curriculum for fellow education. In this observational study, we found that fellow-driven educational initiatives can make a dramatic impact in one year. We revamped the educational curriculum for pediatric critical care fellows and showed a dramatic improvement in fellow satisfaction. The intrinsic motivation to improve one’s own educational experience is likely to have more impact than didactics designed by those not directly benefiting from it. Trainee-driven and designed curriculums may be the future of medical education.
Figure 1. Overall Satisfaction of Pediatric Critical Care Medicine Fellowship Education CurriculumPre- and post-intervention levels of satisfaction regarding the new Pediatric Critical Care Medicine (PCCM) fellow-designed curriculum, separated by post-graduate year
Figure 2. Likelihood To Recommend This Curriculum To Other ProgramsPre- and post-intervention levels of inclination to recommend this fellow-designed curriculum to other programs, from 0 (not-likely) to 10 (very likely), separated by post-graduate year