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Abstract
Aims The Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health (RCPCH) provides a comprehensive curriculum for paediatric trainees. It details the knowledge, skills and behaviours expected from a trained paediatrician and highlights the core competences required of trainees. Achieving these competencies can be difficult for more uncommon conditions which trainees do not routinely encounter in clinical practice. We sought to address this by offering senior paediatric trainees the opportunity to participate in inter-professional, high-fidelity, simulated scenarios based on rare but important clinical conditions.
Methods We surveyed all level three paediatric trainees (ST6– ST8) in our deanery. We listed the acute presentations as outlined in the RCPCH for general paediatrics and asked them to identify conditions which they had either never experienced or had only had very limited exposure to in clinical practice. We incorporated routine simulation teaching, focusing on these rare cases, into the postgraduate education programme in the deanery’s tertiary paediatric centre. Trainees who participated were asked to complete an online questionnaire to explore their experience of these teaching sessions.
Results Trainees identified a number of conditions with which they lacked clinical experience. Table 1 highlights some of the conditions trainees mentioned.
Examples of rare cases as lsited by level three trainees:
Feedback on these sessions was very positive. Comments included:
‘These sessions enabled me to develop my confidence in the management of conditions which I rarely see in clinical practice.’
‘Rare case simulation training allows me to meet curriculum competencies which I have not previously been able to achieve.’
‘Challenging and educational.’
Conclusions Simulation training focusing on rare cases allows trainees to develop their confidence in managing uncommon conditions and address areas of the curriculum which they have previously struggled to achieve. After a successful local pilot we have now also embedded rare case simulation training into the deanery’s regional paediatric teaching programme.