APGO

Background: The ever-increasing volume of medical knowledge and time available to acquire it are inversely proportional, creating a conundrum for resident-educators of medical students during clerkships. As learners themselves, resident teaching opportunities can be stifled by self-confidence, time, and accessibility of resources. The FLAME initiative seeks to increase the frequency and quality of teachable encounters while catalyzing resident learning through teaching.

Methods: FLAME seeks to create a short presentation for each APGO medical student learning objective. These can be readily accessed on www.flame.rocks and through an iphone application. Our primary hypothesis, assessed by confidential survey before and after FLAME implementation, is that residents will be better able to meet their own teaching goals with FLAME as a resource. Secondary hypotheses include: residents will be more comfortable teaching, residents will teach medical students more frequently, students will be more satisfied with resident teaching, and student Shelf scores will improve.

Results: Of 28 residents surveyed pre-FLAME, 92% find medical student teaching important, and 88% wished they taught more. Major barriers impeding teaching are: time/clinical duties (100%), comfort with teaching (23%) and accessibility of resources (18%). The survey will be repeated in January 2017 and compared to the pre-FLAME baseline. Medical student post-clerkship survey scores and Shelf scores for 12 months following FLAME introduction will be compared to the 12 months prior. 

Discussions: FLAME’s philosophy is simple: empower residents to teach by making relevant, efficient, and reliable teaching resources immediately accessible. 

Keywords: Curriculum Development/Evaluation, Instructional Materials/Methods, Residents As Teachers, Teaching Skills, Technology