190084 Scholarship opportunities for trainees and clinician educators: Learning outcomes from a case report writing workshop

Monday, October 27, 2008

Arun Raghav Mahankali Sridhar, MBBS , Department of Epidemiology, University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, AL
Carlos A. Estrada, MD, MS , Department of Medicine, University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, AL
Lisa L. Willett, MD , Department of Medicine, University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, AL
Analia Castiglioni , Department of Medicine, University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, AL
Gustavo R. Heudebert, MD , Department of Medicine, University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, AL
Michael Landry, MD, MSc , School of Medicine, Tulane University, New Orleans, LA
Robert M. Centor, MD , Department of Medicine, University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, AL
Background: Publishing a case report is a venue to learn medicine and demonstrates scholarly productivity for trainees and clinician-educators.

Objective: Assess the learning outcomes from a case report writing workshop.

Design: Pre and post intervention.

Participants: Trainees and clinician-educators.

Intervention: Workshop conducted nine times at academic internal medicine meetings and single institutions.

Measurements: Survey of participants' self-rated competence to write a case report, likelihood of submitting a case report to a meeting or for publication in the next 6-12 months, and perceived career benefit from presenting a case report at an academic meeting or publication (5-point Likert scale, 1= low, 5=high).

Results: The 214 participants were from 3 countries and 27 states or provinces; the majority of participants were trainees (64.5 %). Self rated competence for writing a case report improved from a mean of 2.5 to 3.5 (a 0.99 increase; 95% CI, 0.88-1.12, p <0.001); participants scoring >3 increased from 12.0% to 50.0% (p < 0.001). The likelihood of submitting a case report also increased, participants scoring >3 increased from 65.3% to 74.5% (to a meeting) and from 64.0% to 74.1% (for publication); both p = 0.002. The perceived career benefit increased, participants scoring >3 increased from 77.7% to 87.6% (for a meeting) and from 86.9% to 96.5% (for publication), both p = 0.001. Differences in learning outcomes between trainees and clinician-educators were not observed.

Conclusions: The case report writing workshop had measurable improvements on learning outcomes.

Learning Objectives:
1. Recognize the importance and advantages of clinical case report writing. 2. Identify the complexities in a clinical case report. 3. Assess the impact of a well designed clinical case report writing workshop series.

Keywords: Education, Medicine

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

Qualified on the content I am responsible for because: yes
Any relevant financial relationships? No

I agree to comply with the American Public Health Association Conflict of Interest and Commercial Support Guidelines, and to disclose to the participants any off-label or experimental uses of a commercial product or service discussed in my presentation.

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