A Multimodal, Resident-led Newborn Emergencies Night Curriculum

Following graduate medical education duty hour reform, many programs have migrated to a night float model to achieve duty hour compliance. This has led to increased focus on optimizing nighttime education. A 2018 internal program evaluation of the newborn night rotation revealed that most pediatric residents received no feedback and perceived little didactic education during their four-week, night float rotation. One hundred percent of resident respondents were interested in increased feedback, didactics, and procedural opportunities. Our objective was to develop a newborn night curriculum to ensure timely formative feedback, enhance trainee didactic experience, and guide formal education.

A multimodal curriculum was designed to include senior resident-led, case-based scenarios, a pre- and post-test, a pre- and post-confidence assessment, a focused procedure "passport," weekly feedback sessions, and simulation cases. The San Antonio Uniformed Services Health Education Consortium implemented the curriculum starting from July 2019.

Thirty-one trainees completed the curriculum in over 15 months. There was a 100% pre- and post-test completion rate. Test scores rose from an average of 69% to 94% (25% increase, P < .0001) for interns and an average of 84% to 97% (13% increase, P < .0001) for third-year residents (PGY-3s). When averaged across domains assessed, intern confidence rose by 1.2 points and PGY-3 confidence rose by 0.7 points on a 5-point Likert scale. One hundred percent of trainees utilized the on-the-spot feedback form to initiate at least one in-person feedback session.

As resident schedules evolve, there is an increased need for focused didactics during the night shift. The results and feedback from this resident-led and multimodal curriculum suggest that it is a valuable tool to improve knowledge and confidence for future pediatricians.