Mistreatment in Residency: Intervening With the REWIND Communication Tool

There is a lack of curricula addressing the alarming rates of resident physician mistreatment. As the ACGME works to address diversity, equity, and inclusion in GME, there has been increasing attention paid to the issue of mistreatment. Previous studies have noted a high prevalence of mistreatment within GME. Despite this, there are few published interventions to address the mistreatment of residents. We developed a workshop for residents to provide an overview of mistreatment in residency and teach them REWIND (relax, express, why, inquire, negotiate, determine), a communication tool to address mistreatment directly.

We designed a 60-minute workshop for residents with didactics on mistreatment in GME, followed by three case discussions. Four case scenarios were developed to represent different types of mistreatment and situations. We implemented the workshop twice and asked participants to self-rate proficiency around the workshop objectives with pre- and postsurveys.

A total of 11 GME learners completed both the pre- and postsurveys between the two workshop implementations. GME learners who responded demonstrated significantly higher self-rated proficiency on each objective postworkshop compared to preworkshop (p < .05). Free responses on the survey demonstrated that participants particularly enjoyed the case discussions and wanted more practice with REWIND.

Our workshop improved participant self-rated proficiency around the mistreatment of resident physicians. The workshop can be used in the future as part of a multifaceted institutional response to mistreatment.