24. IMPROVING RESIDENT EDUCATION IN THE PEDIATRIC INTENSIVE CARE UNIT THROUGH THE IMPLEMENTATION OF A STANDARDIZED CURRICULUM

Abstract

Background Trainees at our institution have traditionally found the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit (PICU) to be a challenging rotation, with patient acuity and workload that often makes regular didactic teaching difficult. Aim Statement Our goal was to improve the educational experience in the PICU for our residents by increasing the frequency of structured lectures from a baseline of less than half the days to at least half the days of the week over one year. These measures were assessed with anonymous resident surveys. Interventions In collaboration with PICU faculty and fellows, we developed and implemented a brief daily teaching curriculum based on content specifications for pediatric boards. The curriculum is comprised of a series of prompts and associated teaching points. Prompts include visual aids, schematics, and board-style questions. Through process mapping and workflow redesign, we created a 15-minute block in the weekday schedule to allow for dedicated teaching sessions prior to morning rounds. Measures Pre-intervention survey responses were collected from June through July 2019, surveying all residents who had rotated through the PICU in the prior 2 years (n= 32). The survey assessed resident satisfaction with overall educational experience, didactic teaching experience, and the frequency of teaching sessions. Following implementation of the teaching curriculum in August 2019, the same survey was administered to residents after each PICU rotation block. There have been 5 rotation blocks since implementation of the new curriculum (n= 12). Results At baseline, 15% of residents surveyed reported didactic teaching half or more days per week, as compared with 93% of residents after implementation of the new curriculum (Figure 1). The mean resident satisfaction with overall educational experience increased from 3.4 to 4.2 on a 5-point Likert scale, with 5 being extremely satisfied and 1 being extremely dissatisfied. Conclusions and Next Steps We developed and implemented a standardized curriculum that has led to an increase in the frequency of didactic teaching sessions and improvements in resident satisfaction with the overall educational experiences in the PICU. Going forward, it will be important to gather additional feedback from trainees and PICU staff to improve the lecture materials and identify barriers to lectures taking place. It will be helpful to gather more objective data on the frequency of lectures and to look at resident exam scores pre- and post-intervention.