AEM Education and Training 17: Clinical improvement interventions for residents and practicing physicians: A scoping review of coaching and mentoring for practice improvement

Welcome to the seventeenth episode of AEM Education and Training, a podcast collaboration between the Academic Emergency Medicine E&T Journal and Brown Emergency Medicine. Each quarter, we'll give you digital open access to AEM E&T Articles or Articles in Press, with an author interview podcast and links to curated supportive educational materials for EM learners and medical educators.

Find this podcast series on iTunes here.

DISCUSSING (CLICK ON TITLE TO ACCESS):

Clinical Improvement Interventions for Residents and Practicing Physicians: A Scoping Review of Coaching and Mentoring for Practice Improvement. Casey MacKenzie MD Candidate, Teresa M. Chan MD, MHPE, FRCPC, DRCPSC, Shawn Mondoux MD, MSc, FRCPC

LISTEN NOW: INTERVIEW WITH AUTHORs Shawn Mondoux MD, MSc, FRCPC, and casie mackenzie md

Shawn Mondoux MD, MSc, FRCPC

Assistant Professor, Department of Medicine, McMaster University

Assistant Professor, IHPME, University of Toronto

Attending Emergency Physician, Hamilton Health Sciences

Twitter: @DrShawnQI

Casey MacKenzie MD

Resident in Emergency Medicine

McMaster University

Abstract

Background

Graduate medical education (GME) bodies are beginning to mandate coaching as an integral part of the learning process, in addition to current requirements for mentorship. Once an emergency medicine physician transitions beyond graduate training, there is no requirement and little focus on coaching as a method of improving or maintaining clinical practice. Our objective was to understand and describe the current state of the published literature with regard to the use of coaching and mentorship for both GME and practicing physicians.

Methods

We conducted a structured review of the literature through PubMed and Google Scholar and included all articles applying coaching or mentorship modalities to GME trainees or practicing physicians. A Google Form was used for standardized data abstraction. Data were collected pertaining to the settings of intervention, the nature of the intervention, its effect, and its resource requirements.

Results

A total of 3,546 papers were isolated during the literature review. After exclusion, 186 underwent full‐text review by the authors of which 126 articles were included in the final data analysis. Eighty‐two articles (65%) pertained to mentorship and 14 (11%) to coaching; the remainder of the articles discussed a combination or variation of these two concepts. Fifty‐three (42%) articles were descriptive studies and 35 (28%) were narrative reviews or commentaries. Forty‐seven (37%) articles originated from within surgical specialties and coaching was most commonly applied to procedural or manual skills with 22 (17%) instances among all studies.

Conclusions

Most literature on coaching and mentorship is descriptive or narrative, and few papers are in the specialty of emergency medicine. Most interventions are limited to single instances of coaching or mentorship without longitudinal application of the intervention. There is an important need to study and publish further evidence on coaching interventions.