BACKGROUND:Fluoroscopy is the gold standard for evaluation of gastrostomy tube (GT) placement, though it is costly and resource-intensive. Point-of-care ultrasound (POCUS) has potential as a low-risk alternative to confirm GT placement. OBJECTIVE:To determine the diagnostic accuracy of POCUS for identification of correct gastrostomy balloon placement as compared to fluoroscopy. METHODS:This was a prospective convenience sample of children presenting to interventional radiology for routine GT or gastrojejunal (GJ) tube exchange. Prior to exchange, POCUS operators scanned and interpreted ultrasound images for GT placement, followed by fluoroscopy. A blinded radiologist interpreted fluoroscopic studies. Diagnostic test characteristics, concordance with 95% confidence intervals, and interrater agreement (Cohen's Kappa) between POCUS and fluoroscopy were calculated. RESULTS:Four (3%) of 118 evaluated GT balloons were displaced. Compared to fluoroscopy, novice POCUS assessment of GT/GJ balloon placement had a sensitivity of 87% (79%-92%), specificity of 25% (1%-81%), PPV of 97% (92%-99%), NPV of 6% (1%-30%), proportion agreement of 85%, (77%-91%) kappa 0.04. Expert POCUS interpretation exhibited sensitivity of 91% (84%, 96%), proportion agreement of 89% (82%-94%), kappa 0.09. pH testing had the highest sensitivity of 93% (85%, 97%), proportion of agreement 92% (84%-97%) and kappa 0.19. CONCLUSION:POCUS demonstrated a high sensitivity and concordance for GT/GJ balloon placement, with low interrater agreement with fluoroscopy. POCUS may not add additional clinical benefit in routine evaluation of GTs over current standards of care. However, POCUS may serve as a useful screening test in settings where fluoroscopy is unavailable or pH is unobtainable.

Allister, Lauren MD; Baghdassarian, Aline MD, MPH; Caglar, Derya MD; Chapman, Jennifer MD, MEd; Ciener, Daisy A. MD, MS; Fein, Daniel M. MD; Graff, Danielle MD, MSc; Jacobs, Elizabeth MD; Jain, Priya MD, MEd; Kane, Ian MD; Langhan, Melissa L. MD, MHS; McGreevy, Jon MD, MSPH; Nagler, Joshua MD, MHPEd; Nesiama, Jo-Ann MD, MS; Ngo, Thuy L. DO, MEd; Rose, Jerri A. MD; Seaton, Kara MD; Stukus, Kristin MD; Vu, Tien MD; Werner, Heidi MD, MHPEd; Woods, Rashida MD; for the American Academy of Pediatrics Section on Emergency Medicine Subcommittee of Fellowship Directors Author Information

The ACGME Milestone Project created a competency‐based trainee assessment tool. Subcompetencies (SCs) are scored on a 5‐point scale; level 4 is recommended for graduation. The 2018 Milestones Report found that across subspecialties, not all graduates attain level 4 for every SC.

BACKGROUND:Pediatric emergency medicine (PEM) fellowships recruit trainees from both pediatric and emergency medicine (EM) residencies. The Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME) defines separate training pathways for each. The 2015 PEM milestones reflect a combination of subcompetencies from the two residencies. This project aims to compare the milestone achievement of PEM fellows based on their primary residency training. We hypothesize that fellows trained in pediatrics achieve PEM milestones at different rates than EM-trained fellows in the ACGME domains of patient care, medical knowledge, systems-based practice, practice-based learning, professionalism, and interpersonal and communication skills.METHODS:This is a multicenter, retrospective cohort study of fellows from a national sample of U.S. PEM fellowship programs. Basic demographic information and deidentified, biannual milestone scores for 23 competencies were collected for fellows training between 2015 and 2018. Subcompetencies are scored on a 5-point milestone scale. Descriptive and multivariable analyses for longitudinal data were performed to compare milestone assessments by primary residency training.RESULTS:Complete data were obtained for 600 fellows; 95% (570) and 5% (30) completed pediatric and EM residency, respectively. In both year 1 and year 2 of fellowship, the mean milestone scores of EM-trained fellows were statistically higher than pediatrics-trained fellows across the majority of subcompetencies. By the final year of training, there were no statistically significant differences in milestone scores for any of the subcompetencies.CONCLUSIONS:Fellow milestone achievement between groups was not significantly different by graduation. However, fellows entering PEM training from an EM background attained higher scores on the milestones than fellows from a pediatric background in the first year of fellowship.

BACKGROUND:Pediatric emergency medicine (PEM) fellowships accept trainees who have completed a residency in either emergency medicine (EM) or pediatrics and have adopted 17 subcompetencies with accompanying set of milestones from these two residency programs. This study aims to examine the changes in milestone scores among common subcompetencies from the end of EM or pediatrics residency to early PEM fellowship and evaluates time to reattainment of scores for subcompetencies in which a decline was noted.METHODS:This is a national, retrospective cohort study of trainees enrolled in PEM fellowship programs from July 2014 to June 2018. PEM fellowship program directors voluntarily submitted deidentified milestone reports within the study time frame, including end-of-residency reports. Descriptive analyses of milestone scores between end of residency and PEM fellowship were performed.RESULTS:Forty-eight U.S. PEM fellowship programs (65%) provided fellowship milestone data on 638 fellows, 218 (34%) of whom also had end-of-residency milestone scores submitted. Of 218 fellows eligible for analysis, 210 (96%) had completed a pediatrics residency and eight (4%) had completed an EM residency. Pediatric-trained fellows had statistically significant decreases in mean milestone scores in all 10 shared subcompetencies. Reattainment of milestone scores across all common subcompetencies for both EM and pediatric-trained PEM fellows occurred by the end of fellowship.CONCLUSIONS:This study demonstrated declines in milestone scores from the end of primary residency training in pediatrics to early PEM fellowship in shared subcompetencies, which may suggest that performance expectations are reset at the beginning of PEM fellowship. Changes in subcompetency milestone anchors to provide subspecialty-specific context may be needed to more accurately define skills acquisition in the residency-to-fellowship transition.

Allister, Lauren MD; Langhan, Melissa L. MD, MHS; Rose, Jerri A. MD; Kane, Ian MD; Vu, Tien MD; Ngo, Thuy L. DO, MEd; Nesiama, Jo-Ann MD, MS; Blumberg, Stephen MD; Ciener, Daisy A. MD, MS; Titus, M. Olivia MD; Nagler, Joshua MD, MHPEd; as contributing authors and representatives of the American Academy of Pediatrics Section of Emergency Medicine Subcommittee of Fellowship Directors Author Information

BACKGROUND:Understanding gender gaps in trainee evaluations is critical because these may ultimately determine the duration of training. Currently, no studies describe the influence of gender on the evaluation of pediatric emergency medicine (PEM) fellows.OBJECTIVE:The objective of our study was to compare milestone scores of female versus male PEM fellows.METHODS:This is a multicenter retrospective cohort study of a national sample of PEM fellows from July 2014 to June 2018. Accreditation Council for Medical Education (ACGME) subcompetencies are scored on a 5-point scale and span six domains: patient care (PC), medical knowledge, systems-based practice, practice-based learning and improvement, professionalism, and interpersonal and communication skills (ICS). Summative assessments of the 23 PEM subcompetencies are assigned by each program's clinical competency committee and submitted semiannually for each fellow. Program directors voluntarily provided deidentified ACGME milestone reports. Demographics including sex, program region, and type of residency were collected. Descriptive analysis of milestones was performed for each year of fellowship. Multivariate analyses evaluated the difference in scores by sex for each of the subcompetencies.RESULTS:Forty-eight geographically diverse programs participated, yielding data for 639 fellows (66% of all PEM fellows nationally); sex was recorded for 604 fellows, of whom 67% were female. When comparing the mean milestone scores in each of the six domains, there were no differences by sex in any year of training. When comparing scores within each of the 23 subcompetencies and correcting the significance level for comparison of multiple milestones, the scores for PC3 and ICS2 were significantly, albeit not meaningfully, higher for females.CONCLUSION:In a national sample of PEM fellows, we found no major differences in milestone scores between females and males.

Introduction: One published strategy for improving educational experiences for medical students in the emergency department (ED) while maintaining patient care has been the implementation of dedicated teaching attending shifts. To leverage the advantages of the ED as an exceptional clinical educational environment and to address the challenges posed by the rapid pace and high volume of the ED, our institution developed a clerkship curriculum that incorporates a dedicated clinical educator role – the teaching attending – to deliver quality bedside teaching experiences for students in a required third-year clerkship. The purpose of this educational innovation was to determine whether a dedicated teaching attending experience on a third-year required emergency medicine (EM) clerkship would improve student-reported clinical teaching evaluations and student-reported satisfaction with the overall quality of the EM clerkship. Methods: Using a five-point Likert-type scale (1 - poor to 5 - excellent), student-reported evaluation ratings and the numbers of graduating students matching into EM were trended for 10 years retrospectively from the inception of the clerkship for the graduating class of 2009 through and including the graduating class of 2019. We used multinomial logistic regression to evaluate whether the presence of a teaching attending during the EM clerkship improved student-reported evaluation ratings for the EM clerkship. We used sample proportion tests to assess the differences between top-box (4 or 5 rating) proportions between years when the teaching attending experience was present and when it was not. Results: For clinical teaching quality, when the teaching attending is present the estimated odds of receiving a rating of 5 is 77.2 times greater (p <0.001) than when the teaching attending is not present and a rating of 4 is 27.5 times greater (p =0.0017). For overall clerkship quality, when the teaching attending is present, the estimated odds of receiving a rating of 5 is 13 times greater (p <0.001) and a rating of 4 is 5.2 times greater (p=0.0086) than when the teaching attending is not present. Conclusion: The use of a dedicated teaching attending shift is a successful educational innovation for improving student self-reported evaluation items in a third-year required EM clerkship.

Quality improvement (QI) is a science of systematic analysis and improvement of health care delivery systems. Working knowledge of QI models is imperative to professional development of future pediatric emergency medicine practitioners. The Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education has established a list of QI and patient safety expectations for trainees. In order to address educational needs in this area, we have created a novel QI curriculum for pediatric emergency medicine fellows that include didactic sessions, active participation in QI projects, and mentorship by QI faculty. As a part of the curriculum, fellows are required to participate in variety of QI and patient safety activities, such as Morbidity and Mortality conferences, QI and Patient Case Review committees, and Clinical Care Guideline work groups. As a measure of success, fellows who have participated in this curriculum have shared their successful QI work at the local and national levels. This goal of this report is to share our experience in order to provide other institutions a framework for their own curriculum development.

Background: High school athletes with lower extremity sports injuries (LESIs) frequently present to the emergency department in the United States. Previous epidemiological studies have presented rates and mechanisms of LESIs in these athletes. No studies, however, have looked at LESIs in gender-comparable sports in an attempt to evaluate what differences exist between LESIs in boys and girls. Purpose: To describe the epidemiology of LESIs among US high school athletes using a large national database of athletes in sports that could be considered gender comparable, given the rules of play and protective equipment. Study Design: Descriptive epidemiology study. Methods: Descriptive data from 2005 to 2016 were collected using the internet-based High School Reporting Information Online (High School RIO), a national high school sports injury surveillance system, for athletes participating in 8 gender-comparable sports (soccer, volleyball, basketball, baseball/softball, swimming and diving, track and field, cross-country, and tennis). Rates and patterns of injury were evaluated, with injury rates calculated as ratio of injuries per 10,000 athlete-exposures. Rate ratios (RRs) were calculated to compare the LESI rates in girls and boys. Results: In both genders, LESI rates (per 10,000 athlete-exposures) were highest in soccer (girls, 15.87; boys, 11.68) followed by basketball (girls, 11.51; boys, 9.35), and were lowest in swimming and diving (girls, 0.70; boys, 0.39). Although injury rates were significantly higher in girls compared with boys in all sports, only in tennis was the RR greater than 2 (RR, 2.03; 95% CI, 1.17-3.54). Girls had a greater proportion of severe LESIs and injuries that received radiographic evaluation, such as magnetic resonance imaging, compared with boys for all sports except volleyball. Consistency in the mechanism of injury was demonstrated between genders within each sport. Conclusion: This study demonstrated that LESIs are common among high school athletes and disproportionately affect girls more than boys, especially when looking at severe injuries and resource utilization. Further studies are needed to elucidate the cause of these findings. We hope that the awareness of gender-based differences in LESIs will lead to improvements in targeted efforts to decrease injury rates and injury severity.

"Headache and fever" is a common presentation to the urgent care and emergency department setting and can have many etiologies. We present a case of a 10-year-old girl who presented with headache and fever and was found to have intracranial extension of sinusitis despite lack of typical sinus or chronic upper respiratory tract infection symptoms. This case illustrates the need in the emergency department or urgent care to keep a broad differential diagnosis for pediatric headache, especially when initial interventions are unsuccessful. We also review the epidemiology of pediatric sinusitis, age at sinus development, and associated intracranial complications.

OBJECTIVES:The American Academy of Pediatrics Section of Emergency Medicine's Subcommittee on Administration developed a survey tool targeting recent pediatric emergency medicine (PEM) fellowship graduates to assess the current PEM job market in a variety of areas including (1) the new positions accepted, (2) perspectives of fellowship training, and (3) the relationship between PEM and general emergency medicine practice. METHODS:The 40-question internet-based survey was developed through www.surveymonkey.com. Solicitations to PEM fellowship graduates who completed training between the years 2000 and 2005 were sent via the Section of Emergency Medicine member e-mail list as well as the PEM LISTSERV. Data collection occurred from April to May 2005. RESULTS:Of 125 survey respondents, 89% completed a 3-year pediatrics residency plus a 3-year PEM fellowship. Offers to graduates of positions with research expectations outnumbered clinical positions, 3:2, with an average of 5 total positions offered per respondent. Thirty-four percent remained at the institution of fellowship graduation, and 71% accepted faculty appointments with medical school affiliation. Seventy percent of work time was spent on clinical duties and 10% on research. Most felt better prepared in the areas of clinical training and teaching than in the areas of research and administration. Additional general emergency medicine exposure was not desired. Half of the respondents felt that a 2-year fellowship program would have met their career goals. CONCLUSIONS:Recent PEM fellowship graduates felt that job availability was good and were satisfied with their new positions. Respondents perceived better fellowship training in clinical and teaching aspects than in research and administration. New positions were heavily clinical and matched career goals.

Vu, Tien T. MD; Guerrera, Michael F. MD; Hamburger, Ellen K. MD, FAAP; Klein, Bruce L. MD Author Information