Integrating Women's Health Education into the Internal Medicine Residency Program Curriculum

Area of Science:

• Medical Education
• Women's Health
• Internal Medicine Training

Background:

• National guidelines emphasize critical women's health (WH) areas for Internal Medicine (IM) resident training.
• Gaps exist in current IM residency programs regarding comprehensive WH education.

Purpose of the Study:

• To assess and enhance WH education within an academic IM residency program.
• Identify specific areas of deficiency in residents' knowledge, comfort, and clinical exposure to WH topics.

Main Methods:

• Anonymous online surveys assessed IM residents' perceptions of 34 critical WH topics.
• A longitudinal WH curriculum with active learning methods was developed.
• Retrospective pre-post surveys evaluated the effectiveness of educational workshops.

Main Results:

• Residents identified 13 critical WH topics with insufficient clinical exposure, including contraception, breast symptoms, menopause, and polycystic ovary syndrome.
• Osteoporosis was identified as the greatest learning need.
• A significant correlation exists between residents' knowledge, comfort, and clinical exposure to WH topics.

Conclusions:

• Significant gaps in the WH curriculum were identified, necessitating curriculum redesign.
• The developed educational and experiential WH curriculum effectively augmented knowledge, comfort, and exposure to critical WH areas.
• Improving WH education and clinical exposure is crucial for enhancing the quality of care for women patients.