Background: Our goal was to assess the impact of a standardized residency curriculum in ambulatory pediatrics on residents' participation, satisfaction, and confidence.
Methods: A case-based curriculum for weekly primary care conference was developed to replace the existing free-form review of topics at the Yale Pediatrics Residency Program. Before the curricular switch, faculty preceptors and members of the academic year 2005-2006 intern class completed surveys designed to measure conference occurrence and resident attendance, participation, satisfaction, and confidence in clinical skills. One year after the curricular switch, identical surveys were completed by faculty preceptors and members of the academic year 2006-2007 intern class.
Results: Faculty surveys indicated that conferences took place significantly more often after the curricular switch. The number of residents at conference each day (3.18 vs 4.50; P < .01) and the percentage who actually spoke during conference (45% vs 82%, P < .01) significantly increased. There were 18 demographically similar interns in each of the 2 classes. Members of the academic year 2006-2007 intern class, having trained exclusively with the standardized curriculum, were significantly more likely to respond favorably to survey items about participation, satisfaction, and confidence. In addition, they were more likely to endorse survey items that reflected explicit goals of the standardized curriculum and the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education core competencies.
Conclusion: Implementation of a structured curriculum for ambulatory care improved interns' self-reported participation, satisfaction, and confidence. The primary care conference occurred more dependably after the curricular change, and improvements in attendance and participation were documented. Pediatric residency programs may make better use of conference time in the ambulatory setting through the use of structured, case-based educational material.