THE LANDSCAPE OF UNDERGRADUATE CRITICAL CARE MEDICAL EDUCATION

SESSION TITLE: Education, Research, and Quality Improvement Posters 5 SESSION TYPE: Original Investigation Posters PRESENTED ON: 10/10/2023 12:00 pm - 12:45 pm PURPOSE: Undergraduate Critical Care Medical Education (UCCME) is defined as the collective critical care knowledge, exposure, and experience provided to a medical student prior to residency training. There has been little published innovation in this area over the past decade despite technological advances and the COVID-19 pandemic. We aim to summarize key concepts that emerged from a webinar discussing advances and current practices in UCCME. METHODS: The authors conducted a 60-minute interactive webinar with interspersed polling questions sponsored by the Critical Care Assembly of the American Thoracic Society via Zoom. The intended audience was any health professional with an interest in UCCME. The webinar covered three broad areas with a focus on incorporating current literature. Section 1 highlighted the importance of UCCME by discussing the anticipated rise in need of critical care services for the aging population, etiologies of personnel shortages in critical care, and studies that support early exposure fostering interest in the field. Section 2 highlighted data indicating the desire of institutions to collaborate on a unified adult critical care curriculum for sub-internships, and a model of such work in pediatric critical care. Section 3 highlighted recent studies that featured priming, simulation, asynchronous curricula, and/or hybrid learning formats embedded within UCCME that improved knowledge decay, communication, and teamwork skills. Audience members were asked 4 polling questions. Time for an unstructured discussion was embedded at the conclusion of the webinar. RESULTS: There were 39 people registered and 21 in attendance. All poll respondents self-identified their role as bedside educators of medical students, residents, and fellows. Four participants (36%, n = 4) held leadership positions within graduate medical education (program directors or assistant program directors). Two participants (18%, n = 2) were undergraduate pre-clerkship course directors. 1 participant identified as an educational administrator or dean. Six participants (55%, n = 6) reported that a critical care rotation is an elective experience at their institutions and four (36%, n = 4) reported it was required. Five participants (45%, n = 5) reported that critical care topics are taught in the pre-clinical curriculum. All respondents reported that based on this webinar, they would change current practices at their institutions in one or more ways by incorporating priming, expanding interprofessional and bedside applied physiology education, developing simulation, and/or reorganizing existing curriculum to take advantage of spaced retrieval and interleaving. Themes from the unstructured discussion included practical aspects of creating a national unified UCCME curriculum as well as strengths/pitfalls of incorporating new technology such as computer-based patient simulators and augmented/virtual reality. CONCLUSIONS: There is great need and interest in enhancing undergraduate critical care education curricula to train the next generation of critical care providers using novel pedagogical tools and possibly creating a unified curriculum that could leverage resources from across the country. CLINICAL IMPLICATIONS: N/A DISCLOSURES: No disclosure on file for Daniel Gergen No relevant relationships by Kavya Kommaraju No relevant relationships by Anna Neumeier No relevant relationships by Nirav Shah No relevant relationships by Nancy Stewart