47 Building a Virtual Community of Global Emergency Medicine Mentorship and Learning: ACEP & EMRA’s Global Emergency Medicine Student Leadership Program

Abstract

Global emergency medicine (GEM) is a relatively new subspecialty of academic EM, leading to an identified need for mentorship, education and career guidance, particularly early in training. In response to this mentorship gap, EMRA’s International Committee approached the ACEP International Ambassador Program to create the GEM Student Leadership Program (GEMS-LP) for medical students (MS) which is now in its third year. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the design, impact and effectiveness of the program. GEMS-LP uses a completely virtual platform to foster mentor-mentee relationships through: 1) Themed speed mentoring calls (career paths, work/life balance, etc); 2. Functional mentorship through journal clubs (JC) and academic projects; 3) Near-peer mentoring through calls with GEMS- LP Resident Co- Directors. Monthly mentee-driven JCs focus on fundamental GEM themes. Each has four areas of focus: 1) Critical analysis of the literature based on a journal article; 2) Increasing didactic knowledge from a foundational book chapter; 3) Practical application of knowledge and research to a GEM intervention proposal; 4) Understanding training and career opportunities through mentor career presentations. Academic projects provide a true GEM apprenticeship as mentees work collaboratively with mentors. Projects range from literature reviews on the state of emergency care, to GEM curricula development, to writing the ACEP Ambassador Country Reports. Program impact evaluation was conducted through review of applications, mentee/mentors rosters and JC attendance. Anonymous mentee end of program- year quality improvement evaluations were utilized to evaluate effectiveness. Descriptive statistics were calculated. 38 mentees participated over three years, selected from 120 applicants. 33 mentees were based in the US and five outside the US (2 Caribbean, 1 India, 1 China, 1 Israel). 20 ACEP International Ambassadors served as mentors. 21 program graduates remained involved in GEMS-LP leadership. In 2020/21, mentees felt that mentorship calls were most helpful (very helpful (VH): 61.5%), followed by mentorship through GEMs projects (VH: 46%). Mentorship through JC preparation received mixed evaluations (VH: 30.8%). GEMS-LP has hosted 23 journal clubs. The seven JCs in 2020/21 had a total of 189 participants: 143 mentees, mentors or program leaders, and 46 ACEP International Section members. Mentees ranked career path presentations very highly followed by journal articles and book chapters (VH 92%, 46% and 39%, respectively). The project proposal activity was moderately helpful for 69% of mentees. Mentees strongly agree that the program increased their knowledge of GEM and awareness of ethical issues in international work, rating both 4.4/5 (1- strongly disagree to 5- strongly agree). They would highly recommend the program to other MSs interested in GEM (4.7/5). Participants found GEMS-LP helpful in advancing their GEMS knowledge. The structure could serve as a model for other GEM programs and be use in designing other subspecialty mentorship programs for students and trainees across countries.