Promoting an Optimal Clinical Learning Environment for Residency Education and Patient Care (Presented at ICRE 2016 Niagara Falls)

Promoting an Optimal Clinical Learning Environment for Residency Education and Patient Care (Presented at ICRE 2016 Niagara Falls) Introduction: The Scholar Role in the CanMEDS 2015 highlights physicians’ lifelong commitment to excellence in practice through continuous learning, by teaching others, and promoting a safe learning environment. Adapting the AAMC Statement on the Learning Environment (2014) to address the shared accountability for creating optimal learning environments for medical education with the goal of providing safe and effective patient care, we developed a pilot 3-phase strategy to strength residency education and patient care. Method: During 2015 the pilot strategy was designed and implemented with the Surgery Medical Residency. Phase 1 “Diagnosis and Research” consisted of initial review of international medical education literature and initiatives regarding the clinical learning environment. Phase 2 “Residents’ Workshop” was a 2-hour discussion session with 1st to 5th year residents, each group was programmed in a different day to promote peer-discussion, an interactive online educational resource (TedEd Lesson) was used for guided reflection and recommendations. Phase 3 “Next Steps” as a result of the information obtained through the previous phases we designed a pilot online report system for critical incidents in the learning environment and the policy to prevent and address clinical learner mistreatment. Conclusions: The implemented strategy with all the surgery residents’ allowed us to address that faculty and residents are expected to create an environment free of mistreatment as a first step to promote an optimal learning experience, in which feedback regarding educators’ performance can be reported confidentially by residents without concern for reprisal, enabling remediation and disciplinary action when indicated.