Background: Events of the past decade including mass casualty events, natural disasters, global pandemics have underscored the vulnerability of children in disaster situations and the need for physician trainee experience in emergency preparedness. Some residency programs have addressed this gap through education and simulation, but emergency preparedness curricula are not commonplace in pediatrics training.

Goals: The primary goal is to improve resident comfort and competency in disaster situations during the 2023-24 academic year. At our institution, there is no formal curriculum addressing this previously identified gap in residency education. At the conclusion of the project, residents should be able to identify disasters most likely to affect their institution, recognize the importance of pediatric-specific emergency preparedness, and have a general awareness of hospital protocols and where to find them.

Methods: Proposed interventions include grand rounds topics on disaster medicine and hospital preparedness, resident involvement in the institution’s emergency preparedness committee and drills, resident orientation on emergency preparedness, didactics on disaster medicine, and table-top simulation conducted by the institution’s emergency preparedness director. PGY-1 through PGY-4 Pediatrics and Internal Medicine-Pediatrics residents will self-report comfort with emergency preparedness protocols, perceived importance of disaster training, and disasters likely to affect the region. Data will be collected in Likert scale format and compared before and after educational interventions during the academic year.

Results: Baseline surveys indicate that most trainees have no prior training in emergency preparedness but do believe that it is an important component of pediatric medical education. Most residents somewhat or strongly agree that blended didactics and simulation are the most beneficial format for delivery of the curriculum.

Future Directions: The project identifies an opportunity to integrate pediatric trainees in the institution’s emergency preparedness planning. Residents constitute a large part of a hospital’s physician workforce, therefore they should be prepared for and included in hospital protocols. We plan to bring our results to hospital administration and discuss this opportunity while continuing to expand the educational curriculum during the following academic year.

References and Resources

1. Donini-Lenhoff FG, Rockey PH, Surdyk PM, Heard JK, Blackwell TA. Emergency preparedness for residency/fellowship programs: lessons learned during Hurricane Katrina and applied during Hurricane Ike. Disaster Med Public Health Prep. 2010 Sep;4 Suppl 1:S71-4. DOI: 10.1001/dmp.2010.13.
2. Uddin, Sayeedha Ghori MD, MPH; Barnett, Daniel J. MD, MPH; Parker, Cindy L. MD, MPH; Links, Jonathan M. PhD; Alexander, Miriam MD, MPH. Emergency Preparedness: Addressing a Residency Training Gap. Academic Medicine 83(3):p 298-304, March 2008. DOI: 10.1097/ACM.0b013e3181637edc.