Comparing the effectiveness of self-directed video tour versus an attending-led tour in Pediatric Emergency Department Orientation -

Abstract

Objectives: Providing an emergency department tour to medical trainees as part of their pediatric emergency medicine clerkship orientation is important in order to teach significant location and safety features. For many years, we provided an attending-led tour, but increased faculty demands on faculty time prompted us to develop a self-directed video-based tour to replace the attending-led tour. This study compares the learning effectiveness between the two methods. Methods: A single-site quasi-experimental design study was conducted to assess knowledge acquisition and satisfaction of medical trainees between two instructional methods (an attending-led tour and a self-directed video-based tour). Groups were assigned an attending-led or self-directed video tour covering identical content. Trainees completed post-tour knowledge acquisition and satisfaction surveys. Mann-Whitney U tests were used for group comparisons of the knowledge acquisition and satisfaction total scores. Spearman correlations were used to look for a relationship between the knowledge acquisition and satisfaction scores. Chi-square and Fisher’s exact tests were used to compare groups on categorical variables. Results: A total of 62 subjects were enrolled; 31 participated in an attending-led tour, and 31 in a video tour. The knowledge acquisition survey (median score 12 vs. 11, p = 0.021) favored the attending-led tour. Total scores for the 5-point satisfaction (median score 47 vs. 40, p = 0.001) and collapsed 3-point satisfaction surveys (median score 30 vs. 29, p = 0.008) also favored the attending-led tour. Conclusions: Although medical trainees favored the attending-led tour over the video tour, the difference was not significant enough to justify terminating the video tour. We believe that this first-time implementation of a self-directed video-based tour is novel. After making further design improvements, we will continue to investigate its plausibility, since it has potential to augment in-person teaching time for educational faculty.