Residents need focused teaching during pediatric emergency medicine rotation to optimize their educational objectives

Abstract

Pediatric Emergency Medicine (PEM) rotation provides a unique training environment for rotating residents. We aim to assess the impact of PEM rotation on the scientific knowledge of residents from different specialties and training centers by comparing the pre- and post-rotation knowledge. PEM Departments of three major tertiary care training centers were selected. Rotating pediatric and emergency medicine residents were given pre-test with twenty multiple-choice type questions related to the scientific knowledge of PEM and then re-tested with the same questions towards the end of their rotation. The t-test was used to compare mean scores. Further comparison based on specialty and training center was also done. Seventy-three residents were approached and enrolled, 48 from Pediatrics and 25 from Emergency Medicine. The mean pre- and post-scores for all residents were 15.9/20 and 15.5/20, respectively. All residents’ score was less on the post-rotation compared to the pre-rotation in all centers. Pediatric residents at one center scored higher, but they were not statistically significant. There were no statistically significant differences in resident specialty. We found a statistical difference between the residents of two centers compared to the third with P=0.04 and 0.02 respectively. After one month of rotation in PEM, we observed a decrease in the post-rotation test scores as compared to the pre-rotation scores. Since the reasons for the lower scores could not be identified by this study, educational deficiencies should be identified and perhaps a focused teaching and allotted study time to optimize the residents educational objective could be advised.