What do residents think about their training in the emergency department?

Objective.

To know the opinion of medical residents in hospitals in Catalonia about the need for and usefulness of the training they receive in the emergency department.

Methods.

We sent an electronic questionnaire to all residents in Catalonia, through their cooperating supervisors. The questionnaire contained items to collect information on sociodemographic variables and attitudes toward emergency medicine. Items related to training covered the residents’ assessment of the need for a rotation in the emergency department and the knowledge and skills acquired during the rotation (case history writing, relations with patients’ relatives, teamwork, decision-making, identifying and managing critical patients, acquisition of diagnostic and therapeutic techniques). We compiled descriptive statistics and compared the results for residents from different specialties.

Results.

Questionnaires were sent to 1431 residents in 21 hospitals and other training facilities. Responses were received from 427 (29.8%). Mean (SD) scores expressed on a scale of 1 to 10 were high for both the need for training in emergency medicine (8.9 [1.7]) and knowledge acquired during the rotation (8.2 [1.9]). The residents reported that they had acquired more knowledge in the areas of decision-making and management of critical patients. Family medicine residents expressed greater interest in choosing the specialty of emergency medicine (33.7% vs 6.1% for other residents, P<.001), and their opinion of the need for training in emergency medicine was also higher than other residents’ (9.2 [1.5] vs 8.7 [1.8], P=.006).

Conclusions.

Medical residents in Catalonia believe that a rotation in the emergency department provides necessary and useful training. Family medicine residents are the ones who value emergency training most highly.