Resident Project curriculum transformed
To ensure the role of ‘scholar’ is met, completion of a resident project is a mandatory graduation requirement for all Western University Family Medicine residents.
Prior to 2013, residents would choose various project types from chart audits to major essays. While the project offered flexibility to develop a schedule of scholarly activity, we as a Department found a need to incorporate greater training regarding reflective and comprehensive quality improvement (QI) and the resident project was targeted for this training deliverable.
As part of the new curriculum, all residents must complete training in improvement capability through the Institute for Healthcare Improvement Open School. Upon completing this training specific to QI methods that use plan-do-study-act phases, residents can choose whether to focus their resident project on a traditional research project or a quality improvement initiative in an area of interest. If completing quality improvement, residents will identify a question within their family centre as a group and use a systematic approach to identify the effect of a change. Alternatively, residents can complete a research project often using survey or chart audit methodology. The new curriculum focuses on participation in a scholarly project as the literature suggests experiential learning as preferred when training learners.
The initial group of residents enrolled in the new curriculum are set to graduate this year. Some residents have described the resident project as a useful experience that involves the creation of a scholarly question/aim and framework, change management, and implementation of a plan.
Kelsey Klages, resident project coordinator in the Department, oversees the project curriculum and has already noticed the positive impacts.
"Residents appear to have many stories about framing their questions, choosing the correct metrics, barriers/facilitators with project implementation, and working with their EMR. It has been exciting to help develop this curriculum and see the outcomes of projects."
The aim of the new curriculum was to promote team collaboration and reinforce a culture of scholarly inquiry in our academic practice settings.
"We are very excited about the impact of the new curriculum and this year's projects," said Klages.
Second year residents will present their projects and commend their achievements at Resident Project Day on June 10, 2015. The event hosts up to 200 individuals (family physicians, fellow residents, medical students, allied health professionals and staff) and is an opportunity to bring our distributed teaching sites together and to celebrate the success of our resident projects.
More information to follow.
