Impact of Fellows-as-Teachers Workshops on Teaching Rounds: An Observational Study in an ICU

During training, fellows serve as teachers and role models for junior colleagues. Fellows-as-teachers curricula may support these roles, but little is known about their effectiveness and durability. We sought to measure the long-term effects on ICU rounds after administering fellows-as-teachers workshops. DESIGN: Prospective pre-/postintervention observational study of ICU rounds. SETTING: Tertiary-care medical ICU with both pulmonary critical care and critical care medicine fellowships. SUBJECTS: ICU teaching teams. INTERVENTIONS: Fellows attended immersive workshops on promoting clinical reasoning, managing the learning environment, teaching bedside skills, and developing situational awareness on ICU rounds. After the workshops, faculty physicians were encouraged to have fellows routinely lead afternoon rounds. MEASUREMENTS AND MAIN RESULTS: We gathered data from direct observations of ICU rounding activities, residents’ evaluations of rounds from surveys, and faculty physicians’ written comments on fellows’ performance in the ICU from end-of-rotation evaluations. Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics, nonparametric comparative tests, and chi-square tests for categorical data. A total of 61 ICU rounding sessions were observed with 501 discrete provider-patient interactions. Survey responses were collected from a total of 53 residents preintervention and 34 residents postintervention. We reviewed 72 open-ended faculty comments on fellows’ end-of-rotation evaluations, with 22 occurring postintervention. During the postintervention period, fellows were significantly more likely to make clinical decisions, explain their reasoning, provide teaching points, and ask questions on rounds. Additionally, we observed significantly higher quality written feedback on end-of-rotation evaluations by faculty physicians. However, residents generally harbored neutral or negative perceptions about the educational value of fellow-led rounds postintervention. CONCLUSIONS: Fellows’ contributions to patient care and teaching on ICU rounds increased for several months after our fellows-as-teachers workshops. Despite limitations and contamination in our design, our data suggest that similarly designed curricula may promote fellow engagement, possibly at the expense of residents’ education.