Teaching Programs & Conferences for the Yale Pediatric Housestaff
The Yale Pediatric Residency Program is designed as a continuing and progressive educational experience. While bedside teaching and learning is of the essence, a core of didactic and interactive conferences form the basis to solidify your educational experience. Currently, emphasis is being placed on a case management approach. Our core teaching curriculum is evaluated on an annual basis and is closely coordinated and integrated among all three of the teaching hospitals. This year, computer interactive video conferencing links have been established between the Yale-New Haven Children's Hospital, the Hospital of St. Raphael, and the Bridgeport Hospital so that all of the Yale pediatric housestaff can observe and participate in the lecture series and housestaff meetings.
In all of the patient care areas, the attending physician makes rounds with the housestaff on a daily basis, including weekends. The attending physician has the responsibility for coordination of patient care activities as well as teaching on all patients. This includes daily bedside examination and teaching for the housestaff. In addition, the attending physicians for each ward team at the Children's Hospital are responsible for a didactic teaching conference weekly. An innovative conference series including Journal Club, daily inpatient as well as outpatient conference series, morning report, and mock codes are provided for the house staff. Pediatric subspecialists provide additional teaching conferences for the Yale pediatric housestaff two days per week as well as every morning as part of the Outpatient Conference Series. Finally, Pediatric Grand Rounds is the highlight of the weekly teaching schedule. All of these conferences are specifically directed to patient care problems and housestaff education. Daily conferences also occur in Radiology, Continuity Clinic, Newborn Special Care Unit, Pediatric Intensive Care Unit, and various subspecialty sections.
Each Thursday afternoon, patients who have been discharged with diagnostic dilemmas or unusual diagnoses are discussed in a multidisciplinary literature-based conference which provides further opportunity for interaction between the housestaff and the faculty. This Discharge Conference provides opportunity for detailed discussion of intriguing and diagnostically difficult patients. Once monthly, the conference is devoted to a morbidity and mortality discussion to evaluate the issues of medical management, practitioner communication, and overall patient care. Discharge Conference also allows for both the housestaff and faculty to hear from world experts on various issues in pediatrics, as well as learn the latest clinical and basic laboratory information in the continuing effort to bring the bench to the bedside.
International Track in Global Health
In 2008, our residents together with our faculty began working toward the creation of a Global Health Track to incorporate education, service, research and collaboration into the residency curriculum. This project came to fruition in the summer of 2009, and we are proud to have this fully funded program completely integrated into our educational curriculum and available to all of our housestaff. Working with our faculty in a variety of international venues, the Yale resident joins a community of physicians who share a common dedication to the health needs of all children. It is our sincere hope that through this education and experience in both international and domestic settings, our residents will be equipped to be active participants in the global health community, regardless of career path.
Primary Care Pediatrics
Residents learn to assess and manage common problems in ambulatory care in clinic under the supervision and guidance of their faculty preceptors. To enhance this clinical experience and supplement any gaps in their firsthand encounters, we developed a literature-based curriculum that covers a wide span of primary care topics in pediatrics.
The Yale Primary Care Pediatrics Curriculum serves as the basis for the weekly pre-clinic conference that takes place in the half hour prior to resident continuity clinic. This conference is led by either a faculty preceptor or a resident under faculty supervision. Residents read the cases and key reference materials prior to coming to pre-clinic conference, which minimizes the amount of didactic information to be covered and enables vigorous discussion of the questions posed in the cases. The groups are small (including only residents, students, and faculty who have clinic that day), which facilitates active discussion and personalized education.
Our curriculum serves as a guide for organized, case-centered, evidence-based discussions of core topics in outpatient pediatrics as well as issues relating to the ethical, legal, and business aspects of healthcare. Through use of the curriculum, we ensure the quality, content, and accuracy of preclinic conference sessions from week to week. The curriculum is available to housestaff and faculty in both paper and online versions, both of which contain internet links to reference articles and useful resources.
There are two versions of the curriculum: one for moderators and one for learners. In both versions, each chapter is arranged in a standardized format: a case vignette followed by a series of questions. The moderator's version also contains suggested answers to the questions, teaching pearls, and suggestions for group exercises to reinforce key points.
This innovative curriculum was collaboratively developed by Yale housestaff and faculty to fortify evidence-based learning in our clinical conferences. All original content was in fact written by Yale housestaff and faculty, and continues to be updated annually. It is currently used by more than 70 residents and 20 faculty in the Yale Pediatrics and Combined Medicine-Pediatrics Residency Programs. The curriculum has met with a high level of satisfaction based on surveys of residents and faculty.
For more information regarding The Yale Curriculum in Primary Care Pediatrics, please contact Jaideep Talwalkar, MD or Ada Fenick, MD.
