Resident education in transfusion medicine: a multi-institutional needs assessment

A survey was conducted among resident physicians at nine academic medical centers to assess their perceptions of their knowledge of transfusion medicine (TM), their confidence in using various blood bank resources, and their ratings of the contribution of various learning resources to their knowledge of TM. A total of 320 residents completed the survey; nearly 90 percent were in an internal medicine, surgery, or anesthesiology residency. Respondents placed a high value on the relevance of TM to patient care, although they rated their knowledge and learning opportunities as only moderate. They rated senior residents as the most useful educational resource, with undergraduate medical school education, formal conferences, and journals and library resources being the three next most useful. Residents had the greatest confidence in using packed red cells, platelets, and fresh-frozen plasma. Surgery and anesthesiology residents generally had greater confidence in using blood bank resources than internal medicine residents. The findings of the survey can be used, along with the results of medical care evaluations of transfusion practice and opinions of education experts, to create an optimally relevant and effective curriculum for resident education in transfusion medicine.