Educational Benefits of Allowing Pediatrician Supervision of Emergency Medicine Residents.

Background: According to the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education emergency medicine (EM) program requirements, EM residents on EM rotations must be supervised by board-certified/board-prepared EM or pediatric EM (PEM) faculty.

Objective: We sought to understand the effect of allowing EM residents to be supervised by attending pediatricians while caring for pediatric urgent care patients.

Methods: The EM residents were permitted to staff pediatric urgent care patients with either an EM/PEM attending or an attending pediatrician from August 2017 to July 2018. Outcomes were assessed through resident focus groups, a mixed-methods survey of EM residents and EM/PEM/pediatrician attendings, and clinical outcomes, including length of stay, best evidence/clinical care guideline adherence, and 48-hour return visits requiring admission. Qualitative data were inductively coded using a phenomenological framework, with themes emerging from consensus discussion.

Results: Ninety percent of residents participated in 1 of 7 focus groups. Four key themes emerged from qualitative analysis of focus group transcripts: (1) pediatricians have unique skills that complement those of EM physicians; (2) EM resident education improved; (3) patients may get better care with dual staffing; and (4) other PEM department and urgent care team members may have benefited from the change. The survey response rate was 72%, and it did not uncover additional themes. Length of stay was shorter for patients supervised by attending pediatricians (114 versus 128 minutes,  < .001); there was no difference in best evidence/clinical care guideline adherence or 48-hour return visits requiring admission.

Conclusions: Physicians' perceived education was improved by adding complementary perspectives without significant negative consequences for learners or patients.