MP16: Oral case presentation: evaluation of a novel curriculum and development of a competency-based assessment tool in Emergency Medicine

Introduction: The oral case presentation is recognized as a core educational and patient care activity but has not been well studied in the emergency setting. The objectives of this study are: 1) to develop a competency-based assessment tool to formally evaluate the emergency medicine oral case presentation (EM-OCP) competency of medical students and ‘transition to discipline’ residents, and 2) to develop, implement and evaluate a curriculum to enhance oral case presentation (OCP) communication skills in the emergency medicine (EM) setting. Methods: Using data from a literature review, a Canadian Association of Emergency Physicians national survey, and local focus groups, the authors designed an OCP framework, blended learning curriculum, and EM-OCP assessment tool. Ninety-six clerkship students were randomly assigned to receive either the control, the standard clerkship curriculum, or intervention, the blended learning curriculum. At the beginning of their emergency medicine rotation, learners completed a pre-test using a standardized patient (SP) case to assess their baseline OCP skills. The intervention group then completed the EM-OCP curriculum. All students completed post-tests with a different SP at the end of the six-week EM rotation. Audio-recordings of pre and post-tests were evaluated using the assessment tool by two blinded evaluators. Results: Using the Kruskal-Wallis test, all students demonstrated improvement in EM-OCP skills between their pre-test and post-test, however, those who received the blended learning curriculum showed significantly greater improvement in synthesis of information (p = 0.044), management (p = 0.006) and overall entrustment decision score (p = 0.000). Conclusion: Implementation of a novel EM-OCP curriculum resulted in more effective communication and higher entrustment scores. This curriculum could improve OCP performance not only in emergency medicine settings but also across specialties where medical students and residents must manage critical patients.