247 - Mentor the Mentors: A Novel Certificate Course for Training Faculty to Mentor Pediatric Resident Scholarly Activity

Poster Number: 247
Publication Number: 247.418

Katelyn Gerth, University of Oklahoma College of Medicine, Oklahoma City, OK, United States; Edgardo Szyld, University of Oklahoma College of Medicine, oklahoma city, OK, United States; Lise DeShea, University of Oklahoma College of Medicine, Oklahoma City, OK, United States; Will H. Beasley, University of Oklahoma HSC, Norman, OK, United States; Casey Hester, University of Oklahoma College of Medicine, OKC, OK, United States; Erynn Bergner, University of Oklahoma College of Medicine, Oklahoma City, OK, United States

Background: All residents in ACGME-accredited programs are required to participate in scholarly activity. Common challenges include inadequate time, resources, and faculty mentorship. 

Objective: To describe and evaluate a novel approach to improve mentorship quality and breadth for pediatric resident scholarly projects.

Design/Methods: Using a Train the Trainer approach and Kerns’ Curriculum as an educational framework, we designed a certificate course consisting of 5 one-hour monthly sessions (July-November 2020). Pediatrics faculty were recruited via email, completed one hour of pre-work, and engaged in interactive sessions featuring small group work and large group discussion. Anonymous pre- and post-course surveys asked participants to rate their knowledge and skills related to mentoring resident projects from 0 (extremely poor) to 100 (extremely knowledgeable/skilled). Participants rated their confidence in mentoring residents as excellent, good, average, poor or terrible. Data analysis was limited to descriptive statistics and graphs because pre-post responses from the surveys could not be paired and the independence assumption was violated by having the same people responding on both occasions.  

Results: All 22 participants completed the course, with diversity across gender, specialty, rank, and research experience (Table 1).  Compared to the pre-training means, all participants’ post-training ratings were higher on items about (a) understanding what a good resident project is and (b) ability to plan and implement a project. Post-training ratings were substantially higher than pre-training ratings for (c) conceiving, planning and implementing a resident project, (d) developing a resident’s research question, (e) helping mentees with posters, (f) understanding the mentor’s role, and (g) what makes a good resident project (Figure 1). On overall confidence in mentoring a resident scholarly project, 18 of 22 respondents (82%) rated themselves above average post-training, compared with 3 of 17 (18%) pre-survey (Figure 2).Conclusion(s): A novel course was successfully implemented to train faculty to mentor pediatric resident scholarly projects. It substantially increased participants’ knowledge, ability, and confidence to mentor a resident scholarly project from conception through dissemination of results.
CV for Katelyn GerthCV Katelyn Gerth.pdf
Figure 1. Pre and Post Course Survey ResultsJittered boxplots of self-ratings pre- and post-training. Ratings ranged from 0 (extremely poor) to 100 (extremely knowledgeable/skilled). The median is indicated by the line dividing the box, while mean is shown with a diamond. Random horizontal variation was added to points to jitter them and prevent overlaps in scores. M = mean, App = Application, IRB = Institutional Review Board.