A Novel Leadership Curriculum for Emergency Medicine Residents.

Abstract

Audience and type of curriculum: This longitudinal leadership curriculum is designed for emergency medicine residents at all levels, with individual sessions designed for each residency year.

Length of curriculum: This curriculum runs once annually over three to four years of emergency medicine residency.

Introduction: Leadership is a vital skill for emergency physicians but is often passively taught during residency training. Strong leadership skills can lead to improved patient outcomes, but very few residency programs in any specialty and no emergency medicine residency programs have published comprehensive leadership training curricula.

Educational goals: The goals of this curriculum are to expose Emergency Medicine residents to the basics of leadership, to provide a graduated series of interactive, psychologically safe environments to explore individual leadership styles, to review interesting relevant literature, and to discuss leadership principles and experiences with senior leaders in our Emergency Department.

Educational methods: The educational strategies used in this curriculum include: brief lecture-style seminars, small group discussion and reflection, and a panel-style discussion.

Research methods: The educational content of this curriculum was evaluated by learners via feedback surveys after each session.

Results: Course evaluations conducted in both 2017 and 2020 showed that more than 89% of resident participants found these sessions "useful" or "very useful." All residents surveyed agreed that leadership is an important topic for emergency medicine residency, and 76% felt that the inclusion of leadership content strengthened the residency's curriculum. Suggestions for future topics included handling personal conflict and discussing transitions in leadership during yearly residency promotions.

Discussion: The curriculum has been successfully implemented for seven years. It has proven to be sustainable and requires minimal resources. The residents report high satisfaction with the curriculum and agree that formal instruction on the topic of leadership is important to their on-shift performance and careers.

Topics: Leadership, communication.