The Effect of Paging Reminders on Fellowship Conference Attendance: A Multi-Program Randomized Crossover Study

Area of Science:

• Medical Education
• Continuing Medical Education
• Internal Medicine Fellowships

Background:

• Educational conferences are crucial for medical training.
• Reminder systems, such as text pages, may increase conference attendance.

Purpose of the Study:

• To evaluate the impact of text message reminders on conference attendance among internal medicine fellows.
• To determine if routine paging enhances participation in fellowship programs.

Main Methods:

• A prospective, randomized, crossover study involving 46 fellows across 3 internal medicine fellowship programs.
• Fellows were randomized into groups receiving or not receiving text page reminders 30 minutes before conferences.
• Attendance was tracked via self-registration logs over a 6-month period.

Main Results:

• No significant difference in overall individual attendance was observed between the groups receiving pages and those not (43.7% vs. 45.6%, P = .50).
• Text message reminders did not impact attendance rates across different fellowship types or training years.
• Overall attendance rates remained similar between the intervention and control groups throughout the study.

Conclusions:

• Routine text message reminders prior to regularly scheduled conferences do not improve attendance among fellows.
• Fellows cited clinical obligations as a significant barrier to attending educational conferences.