A One-Week Online Preparation for Residency Course

Fourth-year medical students are graduating in an unprecedented time in healthcare and history. This makes it more important than ever to provide graduating students with tools to help them with the transition to residency. This one-week, hybrid course was developed by faculty and fourth-year students at the Frank H. Netter MD School of Medicine at Quinnipiac University, and was designed to be an enduring resource for the students during their internship/residency. The school made it openly available to all members of the class of 2020. All coursework was optional and “a la carte,” there was no associated elective credit, and students did not receive a grade. The learning objectives for the course are listed in the resources document. The online course included 3 components: 

1. Online Resources – We developed a list of “plug and play” existing online resources (guides, tutorials, videos, articles) to address each learning objective. To develop the online resources, we used a stepwise process that began with a comprehensive review of iCollaborative and MedEdPORTAL submissions (in collaboration with the AAMC) and identification of analysis gap areas where more learning resources were needed. The medical student authors were assigned a selection of learning objectives and identified additional resources and a faculty author made final revisions. The resources included in this list were reviewed for quality, felt to appropriately address their associated learning objective, and were published within the last 10 years (most within the last 5). In addition, Netter fourth-year students created a list of “Must-Have Apps” organized by specialty by consulting with Netter alumni and other interns and residents. 
2. Zoom Case Discussions with Peers – The fourth year student developers identified 9 topics that interns commonly encounter for which they requested peer and faculty discussions focused on management. Case scenarios were developed for these topics which include: transfusions, anticoagulation, delirium, fever/sepsis, respiratory distress, acute asthma/COPD exacerbation, arrhythmias, emergent electrolyte disorders, and pain management. On the second and third day of the course, Zoom “rooms” were set up for each case and students were invited to join to discuss management questions for each case. 
3. Zoom Case Discussions with Faculty – On the first day of the course, Netter’s Senior Associate Dean for Education held a synchronous session entitled, “Prep for Day 2 of Internship – Tips for Success”. 

On the last two days of the course, students met again in synchronous sessions to review the cases with a faculty expert. Students who participated were surveyed to determine which portions of the course were most valuable and which instructional formats they preferred. One limitation of the course is the lack of pediatric specific cases and we will be adding these for future iterations. We also surveyed students who did not participate in synchronous sessions, and found that they valued the opportunity but had other competing demands such as finding housing for residency or caring for family members . We plan to continue this course in an online format to allow students who are off campus in the last weeks of school to access the course and the associated resources.