LeeAnne Flygt
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Chapel Hill, North Carolina
Disclosure information not submitted.
Hillary Liken, MD
Doctor
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, United States
Disclosure information not submitted.
Meg Kihlstrom, MD
Doctor
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, United States
Disclosure information not submitted.
Title: A Teaching Tidbit a Day Goes a Long Way: Improving PICU Education through a Standardized Curriculum
Introduction: The Pediatric Intensive Care Unit (PICU) can be a challenging rotation for residents. High patient acuity and heavy workloads can make formal didactic teaching difficult. Our goal was to improve the educational experience in the PICU for residents by increasing the frequency of structured lectures from less than half the days to at least half the days of the week.
Methods: We developed and implemented a daily teaching curriculum comprised of prompts and teaching points based on content specifications for pediatric boards. We created a 15-minute block in the weekday schedule to allow for brief dedicated teaching sessions prior to morning rounds. Pre-intervention survey responses were collected June-July 2019, surveying all residents who rotated through the PICU in the prior two years. The survey assessed resident satisfaction with overall educational and didactic teaching experience, as well as frequency of teaching sessions. Following implementation of the curriculum in August 2019, the same survey was administered to residents after each PICU rotation. PICU faculty were also surveyed following implementation to assess the curriculum’s utility, length, and timing, as well as how often it was used.
Results: Our pre-intervention resident survey had 32 responses [57% response rate (RR)], our post-intervention resident survey had 50 responses (75% RR). The faculty survey had 7 responses (64% RR). 15% of residents reported didactic teaching more than half the days per week pre-intervention, as compared with 94% of residents post-intervention. Mean resident satisfaction with overall educational and didactic teaching experience improved from 3.4 to 4.3 and from 2.4 to 4.4, respectively (1 = extremely dissatisfied to 5 = extremely satisfied). PICU faculty agreed that the curriculum was helpful for resident education (100%), and that length and timing were “just right” (100% for both). Faculty reported teaching occurring more than half the days of the week (mean 3.2 weekdays).
Conclusion: Resident education and faculty teaching satisfaction can be improved through use of a standardized curriculum. By creating short, high impact teaching sessions, formal didactic education in the PICU can increase in frequency and provide both residents and faculty increased satisfaction with the educational experience.