Teaching to varied disciplines and educational levels simultaneously: An innovative approach in a neonatal follow-up clinic

Abstract

Purpose: Across various health conditions and geographic regions, there remains a dearth of clinicians with the expertise and confidence to identify and manage children with disabilities. At the front line of this crisis are clinician-educators, who are tasked with caring for these unique patients and with training the future workforce. Balancing patient care and clinical instruction responsibilities is particularly challenging when trainees of varied educational levels and specialties report simultaneously. The lack of a standard curriculum further compounds the clinician-educator’s teaching demands and threatens the consistency of trainees’ learning. Recognizing these challenges in their work in a neonatal follow-up clinic, the authors sought a solution through an established curriculum development process.

Materials and methods: A needs assessment survey was conducted to gauge medical trainees’ knowledge, skills, and experiences. Applying needs assessment findings, the authors developed a curriculum, which was administered online to several trainee cohorts just prior to rotations in the neonatal follow-up clinic.

Results: After completing the curriculum, trainees scored significantly higher on neonatal follow-up knowledge tests.

Conclusions: Providing advance exposure helped to ensure that trainees arrived with comparable basal knowledge, which served as a foundation for more advanced instruction. This curricular approach may be useful across teaching venues, especially those with multi-level or multi-discipline learners.

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank the directors of the neonatology/perinatology, child neurology, and neurodevelopmental disabilities training programs at Baylor College of Medicine/Texas Children's Hospital, the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine/Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh, George Washington University/Children's National Medical Center; Harvard University/Children’s Hospital Boston, Johns Hopkins University/Kennedy Krieger Institute, Oregon Health and Science University, and the Indiana University School of Medicine for their assistance with recruitment for the needs assessment survey. We would also like to express our gratitude for the support of Dr. Wayne Silverman, whom we consulted regarding statistical analysis of curriculum outcome data and Dr. Henry G. Taylor for his guidance in the development of this curriculum.

Disclosure statement

The authors report no conflicts of interest. The authors alone are responsible for the content and writing of this article.

Ethical approval

The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine Institutional Review Board approved our research application for the needs assessment survey (IRB00029290) on 1 May 2014 and acknowledged our curriculum evaluation (IRB00091483) as exempt research on 11 February 2016.

Previous presentations

Leppert ML, Burton VB. Trainee perspectives of their education of neonatal neurodevelopmental outcomes. Presented at: Pediatric Academic Societies; May 2014; Vancouver, BC.

Glossary

NICU follow-up clinic: Clinic that monitors outcomes of children previously admitted to the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Mary L. O’Connor Leppert

Mary Leppert, MB, BCh, is Co-Director of the Kennedy Krieger Institute Neonatal Intensive Care Unit Follow-Up Clinic and is a neurodevelopmental pediatrician and an assistant professor of pediatrics at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore, Maryland.

Vera J. Burton

Vera Burton, MD, PhD, is a neurodevelopmental pediatrician at the Kennedy Krieger Institute and an assistant professor of neurology at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore, Maryland.

Rebecca A. German

Rebecca German, BA, is a research coordinator at the Center for Development and Learning at the Kennedy Krieger Institute in Baltimore, Maryland and an MSW student at the School of Social Work at the University of Maryland in Baltimore, Maryland.

Maura B. Gentner

Maura Gentner, BS, is a research coordinator at the Center for Development and Learning at the Kennedy Krieger Institute in Baltimore, Maryland.

Doris P. Yimgang

Doris Yimgang, MPH, is a PhD student in epidemiology at the University of Maryland in Baltimore, Maryland.

Belinda Y. Chen

Belinda Chen, MD, is Director of the Johns Hopkins Faculty Development Programs in Curriculum Development and an instructor (part-time) in the Division of General Medicine at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore, Maryland.