A Paging Curriculum to Prepare Learners for Obstetrics and Gynecology Residencies

Abstract

Abstract Introduction The purpose of alphanumeric clinical pages is to relay important information between health care providers. Junior residents field a large number of pages during patient care responsibilities. Answering pages is an important part of residents' clinical care responsibilities, yet little attention has been paid to how we train learners for this common task. The educational goal of this curriculum was to create a simulated paging curriculum to prepare senior medical students on how to manage pages for eight obstetrical and gynecology cases. The cases were created by a multidisciplinary team of obstetrics and gynecology residents, clerkship and program leadership, and certified nurse midwives. Methods The paging curriculum started with a 1-hour introduction to the paging curriculum, during which the learning objectives and the practical logistics of the curriculum were discussed. We instruct the students during this session that they could be paged 24 hours a day regarding the cases during the duration of the curriculum. The cases consist of common paging scenarios such as tachycardia in the post-operative unit and post-partum pain. A paging debrief session is held with the students at the completion of the curriculum to review the eight cases and to reinforce important clinical teaching points. Results This paging curriculum has been utilized for 2 years as a component of a residency preparation elective for fourth-year medical students who have matched in obstetrics and gynecology residencies. Five students participated in the first year of implementation, and 12 in the second year. Student satisfaction was very high with the curriculum based on feedback from a 5-point Likert scale survey (1 = Strongly Disagree, 5 = Strongly Agree) from eight students during the second year. These students gave an average rating of 4.88 to the statement of “The information presented during the session was relevant to my education,” and a 4.75 to “This session was well organized.” Discussion Answering pages is an important part of residents' clinical care responsibilities, yet little attention has been paid to how we train learners for this common task. This paging curriculum will help prepare learners for the important tasks of phone assessments and initial management of common obstetrical and gynecological clinical cases.

Keywords

• Professionalism
• Communication Skills
• Patient Care
• ACGME Milestones
• Residency Preparation
• Interpersonal Skills