Gotta Escape EM all! Emergency Medicine Resident Education with Gamification
Abstract
Learning Objectives: Priapism drainage; Common causes of hyperkalemia; Pacemaker EKGs and errors; Common toxic botanicals and their treatments; Beta-blocker toxicity management; Psychiatric medical emergencies; Resuscitation of adult and pediatric burn victims; Wilderness resuscitation skills.
Introduction/Background: Traditional conferences provide a uniform, didactic review. Modern residents can benefit from a structure that engages them in active learning with immersive and collaborative experiences. Activities like flipped classrooms, simulation, and virtual learning have improved upon the ennui of prior conferences. We seek to appropriate the escape room to review key, uncommon topics in emergency medicine (EM) as a conference activity to address areas of improvement in residents’ knowledge prior to their in-training exam (ITE).
Educational Objectives: At the completion of the escape room activity, residents and medical students will be tested upon and be able to perform the following: Priapism drainage Common causes of hyperkalemia Pacemaker EKGs and errors Common toxic botanicals and their treatments Beta-blocker toxicity management Psychiatric medical emergencies Resuscitation of adult and pediatric burn victims Wilderness resuscitation skills.
Curricular Design: A survey-based needs assessment was done by EM residents about the topics which needed more review before their ITE. Topics were assessed to determine an optimal method for review: lecture, group session, or gamification. Those selected for gamification were designed to fit a predetermined theme to complement a ninety minute conference lecture alternative escape room. Residents were split into four groups and raced to complete the activity. Afterward, residents were provided a review over each topic and the escape room was surveyed for its effectiveness and satisfaction with respect to the review of the objectives.
Impact/Effectiveness: An anonymous Likert scale survey provided to residents showed 90% rating the activity successful in achieving its academic goal and 95% as an activity that residents wanted to implement again in the future. 93% of residents who provided feedback regarding topic selection agreed that the activity addressed their prior curricular deficits.