Better Patient Outcomes Start with You
We're excited to support our residents in their scholarly activities. Fresh perspectives are always needed in the field of pediatrics, and your work may transform existing guidelines.
Requirements
The Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME)
recognizes the diversity of residencies and anticipates that programs prepare physicians for a variety of roles, including as clinicians, scientists and educators. It is expected that the program’s scholarship will reflect its mission(s) and aims, and the needs of the community it serves. For example, some programs may concentrate their scholarly activity on quality improvement, population health, and/or teaching, while other programs might choose to utilize more classic forms of biomedical research as the focus for scholarship Overall a broad view of scholarship is encouraged.
Program Requirement
Based on ACGME guidelines and the American Board of Pediatrics (ABP), our program promotes scholarly activities and quality improvement work. Every resident is required to have a project under both domains over the 3 years of training.
Clinical Research
While at DCH, residents have extensive opportunities to be involved in research in pediatrics and its subspecialties. Residents can participate in clinical research at a variety of levels and participate in ongoing or new projects based on their interests. During the second and third year of training, residents may choose a research elective that will allow them to concentrate on their research activities. They will be guided in this process by faculty mentors, their academic advisors as well as the program director.
Financial Support
- CATCH Grants: The Community Access To Child Health (CATCH) Program is a program of the American Academy of Pediatrics that supports community and advocacy related work.
Quality Improvement
DCH has a robust quality improvement (QI) and patient safety curriculum. It includes integration of the Institute of Healthcare Improvement (IHI resident modules) and hands-on training over the 3-year program on QI essentials to help residents design and implement projects.
The program has a multifaceted approach to QI. Besides working on QI projects under the guidance of their mentors, residents will participate in a patient safety simulation as part of their program orientation, present and participate in M&M conferences every other month, meet every four months to review their project progress and have ongoing QI didactics as part of their overall curriculum. They will also participate in hospital committees and root cause analysis events as they occur, so that they are integrated into the overall culture of safety which Driscoll promotes.
Residents will be able to earn MOC credit for ABP-approved quality improvement work completed during residency. They can then apply credit earned toward their first MOC cycle once they pass their initial ABP examination. QI projects that residents participate in to meet their ACGME requirements may also qualify for ABP credit.
Residents are required to present their QI projects every June to a panel of QI leaders in the hospital during our annual Medical Education QI Symposium.
Residents’ Advocacy
Our residents have the opportunity to stimulate positive change by engaging our community, so advocacy is an integral part of our program. Being a border community presents unique opportunities for advocacy work not easily found else where. Each resident will have the opportunity to participate in different advocacy initiatives to include but not limited to:
- Community advocacy groups and organized community-based programs in conjunction with local organizations.
- Legislative advocacy group–works with local and state organizations on promoting health-based policies that improve the health of our kids
Annual Advocacy Week
This is a week-long event held every year in the month of April. It's an opportunity for residents to go out in the community and advocate for children. Every year a new topic is chosen and discussed with the members of the community.
Dissemination of Scholarly and QI work
Meetings
Residents represent DCH RGV in several meetings such as AAP, TPS (including the annual Jacobi Jug competition), and the Annual Driscoll Pediatric Conference. Funds are available for residents to attend other symposiums and conferences.
Yearly Resident Research Day
Residents are required to complete a hypothesis-driven research project and present it at this annual event held in May—and are also encouraged to submit their research to the Texas Pediatric Society’s annual Resident Research Poster competition.
Lee Budin Quality Improvement Symposium
Residents are required to present their QI projects every June to a panel of QI leaders in the hospital during our annual Medical Education QI Symposium.