Disclosures: Fareea Khaliq, MD: No financial relationships or conflicts of interest

Objective: Utilization of a continuous quality improvement (CQI) model to create a consistent and comprehensive didactic curriculum to improve resident satisfaction and teaching of the fundamentals of PMR.

Design: Residents were surveyed for their satisfaction with the curriculum and suggestions for improvement. The didactic schedule was redesigned into a 12-month block-based curriculum. Six months after redevelopment, residents were surveyed again to monitor the impact of the changes.Setting : WSU/DMC-PMR residency programParticipants : Seven residents (PGY-2 and PGY-3) were surveyed pre- and post-intervention. Five new PGY-2 residents also participated in the post-survey.

Interventions: The WSU/DMC-PMR didactics were redesigned into a 12-month block-based curriculum to ensure a comprehensive coverage of topics and yearly review via a Google-Drive document. A concurrent resident-run SAE review and musculoskeletal ultrasound course was added. Given the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic, a secondary intervention was introduced with a shift from in-person to virtual lectures.

Main Outcome Measures: Pre- and post-intervention survey was created using a five-point Likert scale (from 1 for “not at all” to 5 for “very satisfied”) and questions included the need for curriculum adjustment, satisfaction of the current curriculum and after the changes. Open-ended questions for improvement as well as the negative and positives of the curriculum were also included.

Results: Initially, 71% of residents agreed that the didactics curriculum needed adjustment. After the intervention, resident satisfaction (somewhat to very satisfied) increased from 29% to 86%. Furthermore, 100% of residents were somewhat to very satisfied with the change in lecture styles and the new block-based curriculum.Conclusions: Utilization of a CQI model to redesign a PMR residency curriculum can improve resident satisfaction. Use of a block-based curriculum ensures comprehensive coverage of the wide breadth of knowledge required for physiatric competency. Future interventions may include increased utilization of web-based resources, case-based lectures and hands-on workshops. Outcomes could be expanded to include SAE scores and board pass rate.

Level of Evidence: Level IV

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PM&R Meeting Abstracts - https://pmrjabstracts.org/abstract/pmr-residency-curriculum-development-a-quality-improvement-initiative/