549 - A Nighttime Curriculum for Medical Students in the Pediatrics Clerkship

Poster Number: 549
Publication Number: 549.115

Maribeth B. Chitkara, Renaissance School of Medicine at Stony Brook University, Stony Brook, NY, United States; Sean O'Connor, Stony Brook Children's Hospital, Patchogue, NY, United States; Wei-Hsin Lu, Renaissance School of Medicine at Stony Brook University, Stony Brook, NY, United States

Background: Application of classroom content in a supervised clinical setting is a critical component of undergraduate medical education. Commonly cited impediments to learning in a clinical setting are a low level of supervision and too few opportunities to see patients. Increasing class sizes may negatively impact learning by diluting the number of patients per student and reducing the amount of direct supervision that each student receives. Evidence suggests students prefer night rotations to call schedules and perceive that night rotations offer unique educational opportunities. However, night rotations lack the structure of their daytime counterparts leading to variability in learning outcomes. We added a week of inpatient nights and an optional “scavenger hunt” was created in an attempt to standardize the educational experience of the night rotation while allowing for self-directed and individualized learning.

Objective: To evaluate the addition of nighttime clinical “scavenger hunt” tasks and assess the impact of and student satisfaction with the nighttime curriculum.

Design/Methods: Pediatric clerkship students completed a 29-item Scavenger Hunt during their night rotation. An optional anonymous survey was given at the end of the clerkship.

Results: A total of 168 students participated. T-tests reveal that students in the 2nd half of the clerkship year completed significantly more tasks than students in the 1st half (Mean=16 vs.12, p < 0.001)(comparison of all tasks in Fig1). Using the ORIME framework to categorize the tasks, there were significant differences in completion of all categories (Table1). Completion of the tasks also provided students opportunities to demonstrate performance of the 13 core Entrustable Professional Activities (Fig2). Chi-squared analyses show that students who perceived this activity as relevant to the clerkship (p=.01) and helped the students engage in the rotation (p=0.01) were more likely to complete half or more of the tasks.Conclusion(s): Results suggest that students were more likely to complete tasks as they gained experience in the clinical environment, and those who completed more tasks were more likely to find the experience to be engaging and relevant. Comments suggest that a barrier to task completion beyond a desire to study, was a perception that they might be burdensome to residents. We conclude that resident participation is a necessary element of any future nighttime curriculum and presents opportunities for further study.
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