133 - PM&R Resident-Led Medical Student Learning Program Facilitated by Streamlined Worksheets

Friday, February 23, 2024

5:00 PM – 6:30 PM EDT

Presenting Author(s)

SA

Suzanne Abou- Diab, MD

Resident
Universty of Arkansas of Medical Sciences
Little Rock, Arkansas, United States

Co-Author(s)

NS

Neil J. Simmons, MD

Resident Physician
University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences
Little Rock, Arkansas, United States

Objectives: Literature has shown benefits to residents and medical students when an environment is created for brief, resident-led student education. Medical students report that residents play a significant role in their education and career choices. Studies show residents’ barriers include a lack of confidence and insufficient time to teach. The objective of this study is to create standardized worksheets on six Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation (PM&R) topics to increase the confidence and basic knowledge in PM&R for rotating medical students.

Design: For this project, PM&R residents at University of Arkansas of Medical Sciences (UAMS) were surveyed on their experience with student education and potential barriers. Six unique one-page worksheets were created on the following topics: physical exam, botox, spinal cord injury, stroke, traumatic brain injury, and disorders of consciousness. To date, fourteen rotating third and fourth year medical students have participated in anonymous, online surveys on each topic to assess confidence and performance scores before and after attending the resident-led discussions. Pearson's coefficient will be used to assess validity of correlation of confidence and content scores before and after resident-led sessions.

Results: PM&R residents at UAMS reported time being the primary obstacle to teaching, with 89% (8/9) reporting that streamlined worksheets would help increase the amount and quality of medical student education. Over the six topics, scores showed a significant improvement in average pre and post session confidence scores by 23% with a 21% increase in pre and post content scores.

Conclusions: This study is ongoing. To date, our data supports confidence and educational benefits to medical students in basic PM&R topics when participating in focused and streamlined resident-led sessions. The desired results will provide evidence that a standardized resident-led education series can be extremely beneficial to medical students learning in the field of PM&R.