75. IN PURSUIT OF UNINTERRUPTED EDUCATION: TRANSITION FROM A NOON CONFERENCE TO AN ACADEMIC HALF DAY

Abstract

Introduction The Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME) requires residency programs to provide regularly scheduled didactic sessions. The ACGME does not, however, dictate the format of these didactic sessions, and traditionally programs have opted for a daily noon conference (NC). The daily NC format often leads to poor conference attendance for a variety of reasons including resident duty hour restrictions, clinical responsibilities, and increased off-campus rotations. Without clinical coverage, conference attendees are often interrupted to answer pages and phone calls, leading to poor participation in these learning sessions. In response to resident criticism of the NC structure, our institution transitioned to a pager-protected Academic Half Day (AHD) model in which didactic sessions are delivered in a single weekly afternoon learning session. Methods Second and third year residents (n=21) were surveyed at the start of the AHD transition and 5 months later using a five point Likert scale. Results were not statistically significant, likely due to lack of power with 21 participants. However, there was an overall trend of improvement between the two survey time intervals. Most notably, the areas showing the greatest improvement were: ability to arrive on time, frequency of interruptions, frequency of leaving early, perception of retention of medical knowledge, and overall satisfaction [Fig 1]. In addition, overall resident attendance increased from 50% with a NC model to approximately 80% with a AHD model. Conclusion Transitioning from a NC to an AHD model improved overall resident satisfaction and provides a better learning environment with uninterrupted time for medical education. Follow-up data will assess the AHD impact on resident wellness and knowledge retention via analysis of in-training exam scores and ultimately Pediatric Board Exam scores.