Ian Goodman
Tufts University School of Medicine/Baystate Medical Center
Purpose: Pediatric emergency medicine physicians who work in an academic setting face multiple conflicting goals during each shift that include direct patient care and education of trainees. Academic faculty, who elect to spend their career in a teaching role, have varied backgrounds or formal training in education. Direct discussion around patient encounters can yield a repetitive educational experience for the learner. This setting, with attendings working in real time next to trainees, even with severe time constraints, can be given structure in order to increase educational yield. Structure can be used to move the educational content from focusing around each individual patient to broader themes that touch on the broad educational content goals for the learners.
Method: This interim report, after a feasibility study in the form of a qualitative analysis though survey, aims to provide evidence for the acceptability of a pilot trial of a designed educational toolkit. The five step toolkit, which prompts the user to explore medical training through a lens of situated cognition, requires no specific formal training. In addition, the steps or activities are specifically tailored to not place additional stress on a time limited environment like a pediatric emergency department.
Results: Results of this survey are generally positive and accepting of potential and temporary implementation of the toolkit. There were no problems with understanding written instructions. There were no problems noted with comprehension of each activity. Some attending physicians did feel that the toolkit would increase the time commitment needed for education and that may temporarily delay patient care.
Conclusions: The situated cognition based toolkit, developed for pediatric emergency medicine attendings, seems to be understandable and implementable. A pilot study should be implemented to gather information after longer term use.
