Journal of Education and Teaching in Emergency Medicine

ABSTRACT:

Audience and type of curriculum: This curriculum is designed to prime pre-medical-field undergraduate students with medical research concepts and skills necessary to assist Emergency Medicine (EM) residents on clinical research projects in a community hospital setting.

Length of curriculum: The PRIMER lecture series should run two to three days with six hours of lecture content to be covered. Project completion and poster presentation should take 8-16 weeks depending on time constraints, resources, and project scope.

Introduction: Scholarly research has taken an increasingly prominent role in both undergraduate and graduate medical education. However, researchers and clinician-teachers can be limited in productivity due to lack of funding, time, and formalized infrastructure. This can result in siloed activities, incomplete or unrealized ideas, and often make research challenging for student and resident physicians alike.¹ These barriers to participating in scholarly research are further exacerbated for those in community-hospital-based residencies and community- or rural-medicine educational tracks because these facilities have further reduced access to research personnel and resources.^{2, 3}Simultaneously, research literacy and experience are becoming increasingly critical qualifications for admission to professional medical educational programs.^4,5 Developing structured research training and mentorship for premedical students in community hospital settings can simultaneously enhance residents' research capacity and provide premedical students with critical experience and exposure needed for medical school admission.

Educational Goals: The purpose of this project is to design a didactic training to provide undergraduate research assistants the necessary training to enhance resident research projects in the emergency department.

Educational Methods: The educational strategies used in this curriculum include: 1) Blended learning of in-person lectures and online readings and resources implemented in a three-day workshop to provide foundational research knowledge, skills, and resources to research assistants before beginning projects, 2) Experiential learning implemented in workshops interspersed through the three-day intensive, allowing students to begin literature searches, compose IRB proposals, and develop data management and analysis plans that apply to their assigned research project, and 3) Group Learning where students develop action plans, communication, and presentation skills.

Research Methods: The educational outcomes were quantitatively and qualitatively analyzed by administration of a pre- and post-test and self-evaluation using a 5-item Likert scale as well as the completion of project and presentation of poster. Average examination scores and self-evaluation scores were analyzed for trends. Learner feedback was collected concurrently with the final assessment.

Results: Average pre-test and self-evaluations scores were 3.29 ± 1.11 out of 7 and 11.0 ± 1.63 out of 20, respectively. Average post-test and self-evaluation scores increased dramatically to 5.71 ± 0.95 and 17.86 ± 1.77, demonstrating student acquisition of concepts and increased confidence in their knowledge of medical research. End-of-program scores were 6.43 ± 0.53 and 17 ± 1.15, respectively, and demonstrated good concept retention and retained confidence.

Discussion: The PRIMER model serves to both increase the capacity for resident-driven research in community hospital settings and provide pre-professional students with training and experience to help matriculate and succeed in medical programs. Resident physicians (PGY1-PGY4, n=15) indicated that the PRIMER program would be very helpful in designing (n=12), implementing (n=12), and completing (n=13) a research project. We were successful in implementing the program with three of four projects completed in the initial time frame planned. One project was not completed, and one contributing factor was resident vacation time. Future iterations in our program will consider the full resident schedule for the duration of the program. Research assistants feedback suggested improvements on coordinating resident schedules (vacation and graduation) with the program. We plan to implement the program two to three times each year to accommodate the overwhelming undergraduate interest and further enhance our residents' ability to ask clinically relevant research questions and explore those results in a community-based EM program.

Topics: Medical research, statistics, data analysis, mentorship, data management, research ethics.