Abstracts

The most effective methods for providing resident neuroscience instruction are not established. Performance on the Neurology Residency Inservice Training Exam (RITE) is predictive of performance on the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology (ABPN) Part I, which is a measure of the quality of residency training (Goodman JC, et al. [italic]Neurology[/italic] 2002;58:1144-1146). We previously demonstrated the superiority of an education intervention consisting of resident presentations with weekly quizzing when the format was team oriented, emphasized performance in front of peers, and offered an incentive over a similar intervention with weekly written quizzes, confidential results, and no incentive (Schuh L, Burdette D. [italic]Neurology[/italic] 2005;64(S6):A31). We sought to confirm the effectiveness of this intervention in Neurophysiology. A prospective cohort of 17 residents from 2004-2005 were studied. The control group consisted of 44 resident data points from the RITE from 1998-2002. Residents were equally divided between 3 years of training. All residents from 1998-2005 received a minimum of 3 months training in EEG and EMG over 3 years of training and participated in the same lecture series. The additional educational program for the study cohort was a resident-prepared weekly lecture from a chosen text. Residents were divided into 2 teams. Weekly oral quizzes required every team member to answer in turn; the team with the highest cumulative points was given an incentive. Percent correct scores, individual year to year change and historical first year performance in Neurophysiology were compared with controls. Statistics used mean, standard deviation and t-test. Results are presented in the table. The study group demonstrated superior performance on the Neurophysiology section of the RITE compared to the historical control, with superior year to year improvement, but not superior first year resident performance. We confirmed the success of an educational format consisting of resident presentations with weekly quizzing when the format was team oriented, emphasized performance in front of peers, and offered an incentive. This format may be used by other residencies with a desire to improve RITE performance and document measurable learning under the core competency [quot]Medical Knowledge[quot]. We plan to continue using this format in other courses and eventually analyze effect on ABPN pass rate.[table1]