Final evaluation of the 2005 to 2007 National Pediatric Emergency Medicine Fellows' Conferences

Evaluate the effectiveness of the 2005 to 2007 National Pediatric Emergency Medicine (PEM) Fellows Conference series in achieving predefined objectives in the domains of scholarship, leadership, and partnership.

Conference attendees included fellows in the existing PEM fellowship programs. Self-administered preconference and postconference questionnaires measured knowledge, research-related confidence, beliefs about institutional support for Emergency Medical Services for Children (EMSC) research, and intentions to engage in 7 specific behaviors relating to scholarship, leadership, and partnership. Pearson product-moment correlations measured relationships among continuous variables. Repeated-measures analysis of variance measured change between preconference and postconference measures. Hierarchical multiple linear regression models identified predictors of postconference intentions to engage in each of the 7 specific behaviors, controlling for preconference intention.

Approximately one third of all PEM fellows attended the conference each year. Preconference and postconference questionnaires were completed by at least 70% of attendees each year. Because several fellows attended more than one conference, data were analyzed from the first conference that a fellow attended. In each year, we observed significant increases in attendees' conference-specific knowledge, confidence, and intentions to continue in EMSC research, join national collaborative research networks, and establish national mentoring relationships.

The National PEM Fellows' Conference is an effective means to increasing fellows' knowledge about scholarship, leadership, and partnership in EMSC and increasing their confidence and intentions to conduct research in EMSC.