An evaluation of pediatric residency education in conveying immunization knowledge

The Accreditation Council of Graduate Medical Education now requires all pediatric residency training programs assess medical knowledge competency.

The goal of this project was to determine whether pediatric residency training using patient-based/experiential teaching made residents competent in the area of immunization knowledge or whether additional teaching strategies might need to be developed.

Cross-sectional and longitudinal study designs were used to determine improvement in immunization knowledge on a multiple-choice quiz over the 3 years of residency training.

Both the cross-sectional and longitudinal data showed a statistically significant improvement in performance between residency training Years 1 and 2 but not between Years 2 and 3 on the quiz. This statistically significant relationship by year of training was seen despite the modest reliability of the short quiz and the sample size.

This study shows that pediatric residency education using patient-based/experiential teaching is effective in teaching first year residents about immunization knowledge but is not as effective for 2nd- and 3rd-year residents. Other instructional methods such as computer-based cases could be employed during the 2nd and 3rd years.