Trauma-informed precepting: A novel curriculum for faculty development

Traumatic experiences are ubiquitous and associated with negative impacts on health and wellbeing in patients, students, and clinicians. Trauma-informed care (TIC) is a harm reduction framework that aims to minimize re-traumatization and the negative health impacts of trauma. TIC is increasingly being incorporated into undergraduate medical education (UME) curricula; however, to date, there is no standardized curriculum to support faculty in precepting TIC clinical skills.

We created a series of five educational modules in an asynchronous online format to support faculty in the instruction and precepting of TIC clinical skills in UME. The modules instruct on trauma epidemiology, trauma-informed clinical skills, trauma-informed precepting, and trauma-informed self-care (TISC). The modules are interactive and utilize multimedia content.

Fifty-three faculty members of the primary care clerkship participated in the modules. After the modules, faculty demonstrated increased knowledge of TIC, though their comfort in applying principles with patients and students was unchanged.

We present a novel, standardized curriculum to support faculty in the practice and precepting of TIC clinical skills. The intervention is shown to promote knowledge surrounding TIC. In the future, pairing these asynchronous modules with in-person training may be necessary to improve comfort with the application of these skills.