A systems approach to teach core topics across graduate medical education programmes

Core curricula including Ethics, Medico-legal issues, Socioeconomics, and Quality Improvement (QI) are relevant and significant for graduate medical education programmes, regardless of specialty. A lack of faculty expertise in these content areas is a frequently cited concern among specialty programmes in graduate medical education. We report the results of an institutional systems-approach to assist this challenge. Our institution has 86 post-graduate residency and fellowship training programmes serving 1068 learners. Directors of these programmes expressed the need for a centralised approach to teach learners about insurance systems and the basics of QI.

Two subject matter experts in the fields of insurance systems and 1 expert in QI conducted 2 institution-wide didactics on each of the content areas, attended by 192 and 225 learners respectively.

Significant improvement in learner knowledge was noted for all 3 knowledge-based questions for both content areas (P <0.0001). Learner self-assessment of knowledge of insurance systems increased from a pre-session mean of 2.86 to a post-session mean of 3.80 (P <0.0001) and from 3.29 to a post-session mean of 4.17 (P <0.0001) for the QI didactics.

Systems-wide didactic sessions for learners of different residencies has several advantages including the efficient use of content experts, prevention of resource burnout, and cost effectiveness. This strategy may also assist programmes directors in meeting external accreditation requirements.