Background: The goal of graduate medical education is for residents to achieve the skills and knowledge to practice medicine independently. While remediation is not uncommon in residency training, evidence is lacking to guide best practices.
Methods: We conducted a national survey of pediatric residency programs regarding their remediation experiences identifying struggling residents, documentating the process, and monitoring progress during remediation.
Purpose: Direct observation (DO) enables assessment of vital competencies, such as clinical skills. Despite national requirement that medical students experience DOs during each clerkship, the frequency, length, quality, and context of these DOs are not well established. This study examines the quality, quantity, and characteristics of DOs obtained during pediatrics clerkships across multiple institutions.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFObjective: We aimed to describe pediatric program directors' perceptions of existing mentorship programs in pediatric residencies, to assess whether characteristics used for mentor-mentee assignments impact mentoring outcomes, and to identify barriers to success in mentorship programs.
Methods: With the support of the Association of Pediatric Program Directors (APPD) Research Task Force, we conducted a cross-sectional survey study of all associate pediatric program directors in the United States in March 2022.
Results: Nearly half (82 of 197, 41.
Purpose: Health care inequities persist, and it is difficult to teach health professions students effectively about implicit bias, structural inequities, and caring for patients from underrepresented or minoritized backgrounds. Improvisational theater (improv), where performers create everything in a spontaneous and unplanned manner, may help teach health professions trainees about advancing health equity. Core improv skills, discussion, and self-reflection can help improve communication; build trustworthy relationships with patients; and address bias, racism, oppressive systems, and structural inequities.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe Hospital Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems (HCAHPS) survey measures patient perceptions of hospital experience to determine the annual Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) reimbursement. This study focuses on the "Quiet at Night" variable and identifies institutions with the highest scores to determine characteristics that facilitate patient sleep. The key findings were as follows: CMS Top Rated Hospitals have a mean score of 5 on the "Quiet at Night" variable.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFNinety-minute virtual workshops that used improvisational comedy, standup comedy, graphic medicine, and Theatre of the Oppressed were implemented in 2020 within a required health equity course at the University of Chicago Pritzker School of Medicine to train 90 first-year medical students in advancing health equity. Learning objectives were to (1) deepen understanding of diverse human experiences by developing relationship skills, such as empathy, active listening, engagement, and observation; (2) recognize how diverse patients perceive students and how students perceive them to gain insight into one's identity and how intersectional systems of oppression can stigmatize and marginalize different identities; and (3) engage in free, frank, fearless, and safe conversations about structural racism, colonialism, White and other social privileges, and systemic factors that lead to health inequities. With a 61% (109/180 [90 students × 2 workshops per student]) survey response rate, 72% of respondents thought workshops were very good or excellent, and 83% agreed or strongly agreed they would recommend workshops to others.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe objective of this study was to understand the existing practices and attitudes regarding inpatient sleep at the 2020 US News and World Report (USNWR) Honor Roll pediatric (n = 10) and adult (n = 20) hospitals. Section chiefs of Hospital Medicine from these institutions were surveyed and interviewed between June and August 2021. Among 23 of 30 surveyed physician leaders (response rate = 77%), 96% (n = 22) rated patient sleep as important, but only 43% (n = 10) were satisfied with their institutions' efforts.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFDuring the COVID-19 pandemic, hospitals published physical-distancing guidance and created dedicated respiratory isolation units (RIUs) for patients with COVID-19. The degree to which such distancing occurred between clinicians and patients is unknown. In this study, heat sensors from an existing hospital hand-hygiene monitoring system objectively tracked room entries as a proxy for physical distancing in both RIUs and general medicine units before and during the pandemic.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Sleep disturbances in hospitalized patients are linked to poor recovery. In preparation for a future randomized controlled trial, this pilot study evaluated the feasibility and acceptability of a multi-component intervention (I-SLEEP) that educates and empowers inpatients to advocate for fewer nighttime disruptions in order to improve sleep during periods of hospitalization.
Methods: Eligible inpatients received I-SLEEP, which included an educational video, brochure, sleep kit, and three questions patients can ask their team to reduce nighttime disruptions.
Objectives/background: Sleep is critical to recovery, but inpatient sleep is often disrupted. During the COVID-19 pandemic, social distancing efforts to minimize spread may have improved hospitalized children's sleep by decreasing unnecessary overnight disruptions. This study aimed to describe the impact of these efforts on pediatric inpatient sleep using objective and subjective metrics.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFObjectives: Hospitalized children experience frequent nighttime awakenings. Oral medications are commonly administered around the clock despite the comparable efficacy of daytime administration schedules, which promote sleep. With this study, we evaluated the effectiveness of a quality improvement initiative to increase the proportion of sleep-friendly antibiotic administration schedules.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFReports thus far suggest a mild course for acute COVID-19 infection in children; however, its effects in vulnerable paediatric populations, including children with haemodynamically significant congenital heart disease, have rarely been reported. We therefore report on a 4-month-old Hispanic male with a moderate sized conoventricular ventricular septal defect and pulmonary overcirculation who presented with COVID-19-associated pneumonia.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Although required for healing, sleep is often disrupted during hospitalization. Blood pressure (BP) monitoring can be especially disruptive for pediatric inpatients and has few clinical indications. Our aim in this pilot study was to reduce unnecessary overnight BP monitoring and improve sleep for pediatric inpatients.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPurpose: Despite reductions in the rate of sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) over the last 25 years, over 3000 infant deaths annually in the US are attributable to sleep-related causes. We aimed to improve safe sleep practice (SSP) adherence by healthcare providers working with infants admitted to an inpatient pediatric unit in an urban academic center specifically increasing compliance on five core SSP (supine, alone in the crib, no objects in crib, appropriate bundling, and flat crib).
Design And Methods: This Quality Improvement project evaluated a staff education intervention using a pre- and post-design.
Objective: To contextualize inpatient sleep duration and disruptions in a general pediatric hospital ward by comparing in-hospital and at-home sleep durations to recommended guidelines and to objectively measure nighttime room entries.
Methods: Caregivers of patients four weeks - 18 years of age reported patient sleep duration and disruptions in anonymous surveys. Average at-home and in-hospital sleep durations were compared to National Sleep Foundation recommendations.
Objective: The Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education calls for residency programs to incorporate multisource feedback, which may include patient feedback, into resident competency assessments. Program directors face numerous challenges in gathering this feedback. This study assesses the feasibility and acceptability of patient feedback collection in the inpatient and outpatient setting at 3 institutions.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFStudy Objectives: Sleep is critical to a child's health and well-being, but children are likely to sleep less and be awakened more often during the night in the hospital than at home. To date no studies have compared caregiver, nurse, and physician perspectives of nighttime sleep disruptions in the pediatric general medicine setting. Our aim was to assess caregiver, nurse, and physician perspectives on the most frequent in-hospital disruptors of sleep for pediatric patients.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFObjective: Despite a national focus on physician-patient communication, there is a paucity of literature on how patient and family feedback (PFF) can be used as a tool to help residents learn communication skills. The purpose of this study was to assess the effect of coaching on residents' attitudes towards PFF, self-confidence in communication, and patient-rated communication skills.
Methods: This was an institutional review board-approved, randomized-controlled trial with pediatric residents at 3 institutions from 2015 to 2016.