| Summary: | Abstract Introduction Although pediatric residents frequently encounter acutely ill children in the hospital, emergency room, and intensive care settings, most do not receive focused instruction on how to manage acute, life-threatening conditions in the outpatient setting where many of these children will present. Given that the emergency equipment, the staff's experience and skill levels, and other resources are entirely different in the outpatient office setting than in acute care settings, we have created a training curriculum with content focused on the unique needs of the outpatient setting in maintaining emergency readiness. The focus of this module is to give residents a strong foundation of knowledge and broader awareness of the issues involved in outpatient emergency preparedness, and teach residents how to effectively stabilize patients in the outpatient setting using available staff and on-site resources. Methods The materials in this resource are divided into three parts: (1) an introductory training session on outpatient pediatric emergencies, (2) a series of practice management workshops, and (3) a series of team-training sessions on patient stabilization in the outpatient setting. Competency-based goals and objectives, a detailed description of each curriculum segment, and recommendations for implementation are included in the instructor's guide. All didactic materials, small-group activity worksheets, facilitator's guides to group discussions and simulation-based resuscitation exercises, and other materials associated with this curriculum are also included with this submission. Results We gathered subjective data from participating residents before and after all three portions of this curriculum in the form of self-assessments of their skills related to outpatient emergency management and office preparedness. The results showed significant improvement in posttraining versus pretraining self-assessment scores for all skills assessed, for residents in all levels of training. Further, outpatient general pediatrics faculty noted that the residents are very effectively and efficiently able to manage patient emergencies which have arisen in their clinic since the curriculum implementation began. Discussion The overall design of this curriculum is founded upon the best evidence in adult learning principles, providing trainees with multiple interactive learning activities that require them to problem-solve, practice self-reflection, and participate in deliberate practice. Instructors may implement the training content in this resource in multiple ways, either as a series of separate training sessions or as a single, extended training session. Future studies should be undertaken to determine if this type of training results in improved patient outcomes. As pediatric emergencies occur in relatively small numbers, gathering data at the patient outcomes level will be challenging but no less important.
|
|---|