A Pediatric Resident Physician Coaching Program With Faculty Retreat Developed in Partnership With a Master Certified...

In recent years, the Association of Pediatric Program Directors and American College of Graduate Medical Education surveys have highlighted challenges in pediatric residency, including burnout and suboptimal faculty-trainee relationships. Coaching has emerged as a promising strategy to support learner-centered professional development, but most medical faculty lack formal training in coaching. We developed a faculty coaching retreat to train a select set of faculty members who would then participate in a longitudinal pediatric residency coaching program.

The retreat consisted of a 1-day (7.5-hour) training event including introductions to program structure, a keynote presentation on coaching mindset, and interactive small-group role-plays. We collected qualitative and quantitative data from faculty coaches before and after the retreat, measuring their ability to differentiate coaching versus advising interactions and to describe attributes of an effective coach. Quantitative data were compared using a Wilcoxon rank-sum test, and qualitative data were organized into themes.

Eighteen faculty coaches participated in the coaching retreat. Faculty demonstrated improvements in their ability to distinguish between coaching and advising, with a median score of 90% (interquartile range 70-92.5) to 100% (interquartile range 90-100) (P = .003) on the knowledge assessment. Comparing pre- to postretreat qualitative data, new themes emerged, including curiosity and a resident-driven approach, both key concepts emphasized during the retreat.

This faculty coaching retreat increased participants' knowledge and understanding about what it means to be an effective pediatric residency coach, effectively setting the stage for initiation of a longitudinal residency coaching program.