Disclosures: Siew Kwaon Lui, MD: No financial relationships or conflicts of interest

Objective: We aim to enhance the learning experience of Rehabilitation Medicine trainees through the implementation of a theme-based structured training program.

Design: This is a retrospective observational quality improvement study involving past and present Rehabilitation Medicine residents who are training in a single academic medical center. A questionnaire was sent out to residents asking them to rate the 5 educational metrics on a scale from 1-10 after each didactic teaching session was conducted a particular PM&R topic. The means of the ratings given by residents before and after the implementation of thematic learning were compared for statistical analysis.

Setting: The study was conducted on PM&R residents training in a single academic medical center in Singapore.

Participants: A total of 5 previous trainees and 5 current trainees participated in this study.

Interventions: A structured didactic training program with a monthly thematic focus was implemented, which involves protected training time with 3 teaching sessions per week which are theme-based, thereby preventing unnecessary repetition of topics.

Main Outcome Measures: To evaluate the impact of thematic learning on the residents’ learning experience, questionnaires were sent to Rehabilitation Medicine residency program graduates who had not experienced the new version of the training program, which were directly compared with the scores obtained from current trainees who were exposed to thematic learning.

Results: There was a measurable positive change in the 5 key learning metrics, as follow:

Knowledge Sufficiency (increasing from 5.3 to 6.1; reached statistical significance p < 0.05). Clinical Relevance (increasing from 8 to 9.2). Clinical Application (increasing from 6.7 to 7.7; reached statistical significance p < 0.05). Topic Interest (increasing from 6.3 to 7.2). Difficulty in Understanding (decreasing from 4 to 3.4)

Conclusions: The implementation of a theme-based structured learning program may help enhance the learning experience perceived by PM&R trainees vis-a-vis an unstructured ad-hoc curriculum.

Level of Evidence: Level IV

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PM&R Meeting Abstracts - https://pmrjabstracts.org/abstract/thematic-learning-improves-the-delivery-of-a-rehabilitation-medicine-residency-educational-curriculum-a-quality-improvement-project-in-a-single-academic-medical-center-in-singapore/