Comparing Leadership Skills of Senior Emergency Medicine Residents in 3-Year Versus 4-Year Programs During Simulated Pediatric Resuscitation: A Pilot Study.

OBJECTIVES

The majority of pediatric patients in the United States (US) are evaluated and treated at general emergency departments. It is possible that discrepancies in length of emergency medicine (EM) residency training may allow for variable exposure to pediatric patients, critical resuscitations, and didactic events. The goal of this pilot study was to compare leadership skills of graduating EM residents from 3- to 4-year programs during simulated pediatric resuscitations using a previously validated leadership assessment tool, the Concise Assessment of Leader Management (CALM).

METHODS

This was a prospective, multicenter, simulation-based cohort pilot study that included graduating 3 rd - and 4 th -year EM resident physicians from 6 EM residency programs. We measured leadership performance across 3 simulated pediatric resuscitations (sepsis, seizure, cardiac arrest) using the CALM tool and compared leadership scores between the 3 rd - and 4 th -year resident cohorts. We also correlated leadership to self-efficacy scores.

RESULTS

Data was analyzed for 47 participating residents (24 3 rd -year residents and 23 4 th -year residents). Out of a total possible CALM score of 66, residents from 3-year programs scored 45.2 [SD ± 5.2], 46.8 [SD ± 5.0], and 46.6 [SD ± 4.7], whereas residents from 4-year programs scored 45.5 [SD ± 5.2], 46.4 [SD ± 5.0], and 48.2 [SD ± 4.3] during the sepsis, seizure, and cardiac arrest cases, respectively. The mean leadership score across all 3 cases for the 3-year cohort was 46.2 [SD ± 4.8] versus 46.7 [SD ± 4.5] ( P = 0.715) for the 4-year cohort.

CONCLUSIONS

These data show feasibility for a larger cohort project and, while not statistically significant, suggest no difference in leadership skills between 3 rd - and 4 th -year EM residents in our study cohort. This pilot study provides the basis of future work that will assess a larger multicenter cohort with the hope to obtain a more generalizable dataset.