Evaluation of an emergency medicine-focused clinical pathology training course for non-clinical pathology house officers

Determine whether an emergency medicine-focused clinical pathology training course improved the proficiency of house officers.

Prospective blinded study.

Veterinary academic center.

House officers enrolled in programs other than clinical pathology.

A 4-hour curriculum was provided by a board-certified specialist in veterinary clinical pathology.

A focused clinical pathology lecture course derived from historical teaching materials was delivered. A pre- and post-course multiple choice question examination was taken by the enrolled house officers, as well as a survey regarding their confidence level pre- and post-course utilizing a novel 5-point scoring system, ranging from 1 (very low confidence) to 5 (very high). A total of 21 house officers completed the study, 5 of which attended didactic lectures, 13 utilized an online learning platform, and 3 used a combination of both. There was a significant improvement in all house officers' post-training course examination results compared to pre-course results (pre-course examination score: mean 49% ±12; post-course examination score: mean 72.5% ± 15.7; P < 0.0001). There was a significant difference in pre- and post-course examination scores for each of the 3 topic areas: hematology (pre-course: mean 47% ±16; post-course: mean 71% ± 15.8; P ≤ 0.0001); urinalysis (pre-course: mean 65.7% ± 12.5; post-course: mean 87.6% ± 22.1; P = 0.0004); and fluid analysis (pre-course: mean 37.1% ± 14.1; post-course: mean 60.5% ± 15; P ≤ 0.0001). There was also a significant increase in the house officers' confidence score in overall clinical pathology skills (pre-course: mean 2.2 ± 1.5; post-course: 3.6±1.4; P = 0.0005).

This study identified that a 4-hour clinical pathology training course relevant to small animal emergency medicine improved the knowledge and confidence of nonclinical pathology house officers. A similar training course may prove helpful in the future to improve the proficiency of emergency veterinarians.