(1102) Implementation of a Fellow-Led Curriculum for Residents in the PICU

Introduction: The Pediatric Intensive Care Unit (PICU) rotation provides critical education to pediatric and emergency medicine residents, but variability in patient census leads to inconsistent educational experiences. The residents rotating through our PICU at a quaternary, academic children’s hospital expressed dissatisfaction in the lack of structured education. We conducted a needs assessment via anonymous survey to 166 residents who rotated through our PICU. There were 46 (~28%) respondents; 80% reported they did not receive enough education and 78% reported being uncomfortable or very uncomfortable managing PICU patients thus demonstrating marked deficiency in resident education and highlighting the need for a structured curriculum. The aim of our quality improvement (QI) initiative was to establish a curriculum of fellow-led didactics on core PICU topics, and secondarily improve resident comfort in PICU patient management and confidence in their knowledge base.

Methods: The first PDSA cycle began in January 2024 with the initiation of twice-weekly fellow-led didactics. Our curriculum institutes twice weekly fellow-led protected didactics on eight rotating core topics. We tracked the number of completed sessions and anonymously surveyed resident comfort level in PICU patient management and confidence in their PICU knowledge base before and after their rotation.

Results: Since institution, we have completed a total of 46 out of 48 scheduled didactics. Survey results from a total of 20 residents indicate an increase from 22% to 70% in confidence in knowledge of PICU-related topics. Comfort level in managing PICU patients improved from 24% to 80%. The curriculum contributed to improvements in 70-80% of respondents.

Conclusions: We were successful in initiating and maintaining a structured educational curriculum in a high acuity PICU with resultant increased resident comfort in managing PICU patients and increased confidence in their knowledge. Subsequent PDSA cycles will address maintaining the curriculum in the context of a new fellow schedule and hospital move as well as further evaluation of the efficacy of the educational itself via pre- and post- knowledge assessments to determine whether this increase in confidence aligns with increased knowledge.