A Model for Residency Training: The Small Animal Emergency and Critical Care Residency Program at Purdue University

Abstract

Training residents in any specialty is a balancing act between ensuring high quality education, making certain the resident meets the requirements set forth by the specialty college to achieve credentials and be eligible to take the board certification examination, and fulfilling clinical duties at that institution. For programs such as this one, residents are integral members of the clinical team, working primary emergency receiving shifts in order to allow the service to function; this leads to a need to identify and protect learning time for the residents. Those involved in the Purdue Small Animal Emergency and Critical Care residency program believe that in the chaos that is emergency and critical care, a firm timeline with attainable checkpoints is crucial to resident success. Such a timeline follows goal setting theory and provides structure and guidance to candidates to navigate their three year program and ensure that they complete all requirements during the residency period. Candidates completing the Purdue program successfully finish their credentials, including at least one first author publication, and have at least one scientific presentation to improve their curriculum vitae. This paper serves to present the structure and timelines used by the Purdue Small Animal Emergency and Critical Care program to organize its residency program as an example of a successful program.