The Correlation Between Emergency Medicine Residents' Grit and Achievement

Area of Science:

• Medical Education
• Psychology
• Noncognitive Traits

Background:

• Early identification of struggling emergency medicine (EM) residents is challenging.
• In-training examination (ITE) scores predict success on the American Board of Emergency Medicine (ABEM) Qualifying Examination but are released late.
• Grit, defined as perseverance and passion for long-term goals, is a validated noncognitive trait linked to academic achievement.

Purpose of the Study:

• To determine the correlation between EM resident Grit-S scores and academic achievement.
• To assess if grit can predict success on the ABEM Qualifying Examination.
• To evaluate grit's relationship with ITE scores and remediation rates.

Main Methods:

• A 1-year prospective, multicenter trial involving 10 EM residencies.
• Collected Grit-S scores, MCAT percentiles, remediation rates, and ITE scores from PGY-1 to -4 EM residents.
• Computed correlation coefficients to analyze the relationship between grit and achievement metrics.

Main Results:

• 385 of 434 residents (88.7%) participated, with a mean Grit-S score of 3.62.
• Grit positively correlated with the predicted likelihood of passing the ABEM Qualifying Examination (r=0.134, p=0.025).
• No significant correlation was found between grit and remediation rates (r=-0.04, p=0.46) or MCAT percentiles (r=-0.08, p=0.22).

Conclusions:

• Grit-S scores show potential for early identification of EM residents who may struggle with ITE performance.
• Grit may serve as a valuable tool for residency leadership to provide timely support.
• Further research can explore interventions to foster grit in medical education.