Brad Sobolewski, MD, MEd
Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center
The ACGME mandates that all pediatric residents receive a structured orientation prior to each rotation. To date few studies have examined what constitutes an effective orientation. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the impact of a newly instituted online orientation to the Emergency Department rotation for the pediatric residents at our institution focusing on the goals, expectations, and mechanisms of day-to-day clinical work. We assessed first and second year resident compliance in accessing our new orientation via an email response form located on the website itself and noted that 94% of these residents viewed the orientation prior to an ED rotation during the 2012-13 academic year. In an effort to assess for knowledge transfer from the orientation we saw that second year residents, and residents who had rotated in the ED prior to our study scored higher on a set of randomized questions presented to them in a pop-quiz style in ED format. We also found that our new orientation was able to significantly increase the proportion of residents that were aware of the criteria upon which they were being evaluated by the faculty.
