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Critically Ill Pediatric Case Exposure During Emergency Medicine Residency

Li J, Roosevelt G, McCabe K, Preotle J, Pereira F, Takayesu JK, Porter JJ, Monuteaux M et al.

The Journal of emergency medicine, 2020

31,552 participants

Abstract

BACKGROUND: Eighty-eight percent of pediatric emergency department (ED) visits occur in general EDs. Exposure to critically ill children during emergency medicine (EM) training has not been well described.

OBJECTIVE: The objective was to characterize the critically ill pediatric EM case exposure among EM residents.

METHODS: This is a secondary analysis of a multicenter retrospective review of pediatric patients (aged < 18 years) seen by the 2015 graduating resident physicians at four U.S. EM training programs. The per-resident exposure to Emergency Severity Index (ESI) Level 1 pediatric patients was measured. Resident-level counts of pediatric patients were measured; specific counts were classified by age and Pediatric Emergency Care Applied Network diagnostic categories.

RESULTS: There were 31,552 children seen by 51 residents across all programs; 434 children (1.3%) had an ESI of 1. The median patient age was 8 years (interquartile range [IQR] 3-12 years). The median overall pediatric critical case exposure per resident was 6 (IQR 3-12 cases). The median trauma and medical exposure was 2 (IQR 0-3) and 3 (IQR 2-10), respectively. For 13 out of 20 diagnostic categories, at least 50% of residents did not see any critical care case in that category. Sixty-eight percent of residents saw 10 or fewer critically ill cases by the end of training.

CONCLUSION: Pediatric critical care exposure during EM training is very limited. These findings underscore the importance of monitoring…

How strong is the evidence?

Evidence Hub reads this as a cohort study, done in people. Its evidence level is 3 of 5 (Moderate · trial / cohort / secondary analysis). Trials without a large randomized design, cohorts and secondary analyses give moderate evidence. Reported size: 31,552 participants or records.

How the five levels of evidence work. The level is assigned automatically from the abstract and can be wrong, so check the paper.

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