Abstract Manager

Accept

I declare I have no actual or potential conflict of interest in relation to this program.

Decrypting Clerkship is a novel resident-led program built to facilitate the transition from pre-clerkship to clinical medicine through small-group case-based workshops on practical clinical skills, ranging from developing an organized framework for a full new patient assessment to oral and written presentation. Longitudinal extracurricular sessions were run throughout the year on subjects varying from on-call emergencies to medical communication and handover. The success of the program ultimately led to its incorporation into a formal curricular session in the University of Toronto's Transition to Clerkship course.

Facilitated and Dedicated Poster

General Call (Workshop, Oral Presentation, Poster Presentation)

Oral

Education Innovation

Resident

yes

Decrypting Clerkship: A Novel Resident-Led Program to Facilitate the Transition to Clinical Clerkship

The entrance to clerkship represents a challenging transition between the didactic preclinical curriculum and the unfamiliar practical skill-set of patient care. A pilot resident-led initiative was created to stimulate process learning of these under-represented day-to-day skills, including creating clinical assessments, navigating documentation, and medical communication.

The pilot initiative was created as a longitudinal opt-in program for second-year students over the academic year. Four small-group resident-led sessions were run, each focused on developing separate practical clinical skills through interactive cases. Given the success of this program, it was subsequently incorporated as a mandatory workshop in the University of Toronto's formal Transition to Clerkship undergraduate curriculum. The goals of the workshop were to orient new clerks to their upcoming clinical responsibilities and develop a rotation-specific approach to a new patient. Using a novel framework for patient assessment (abbreviated EARWORM), students were guided through two interactive cases. Students created their own plans and received feedback on their oral presentations. Students were then surveyed on their confidence with the relevant skills.

After the workshop, student respondents felt more comfortable using an organized approach to a new patient (90.3%), creating a differential diagnosis (77.4%), formulating a plan (74.2%), and presenting a succinct case summary (90.3%). 91% stated they found practical resident feedback useful and 84% felt more comfortable entering clerkship. Overall, our program has strong potential to strengthen the transition to clinical practice, highlighting the value of simulated case practice and personalized near-peer mentorship in enhancing clinical competence.

Clerkship

Process Learning

Near-Peer Mentorship

Undergraduate

Curriculum

Case-Based

Undergraduate

Assessment

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes