Biochemical Laboratory Rotation: Optimizing Education While Supporting the Current Workforce

ABSTRACT

Background: Medical genetics trainees are required to complete a 2-week biochemical laboratory rotation. During the COVID pandemic, laboratory resources, time, and space were limited. This led to pivoting of the learning environment. With the current stressors on the metabolic workforce, we next determined if there were ways to continue to optimize the learning while reducing the strain on the overstretched metabolic workforce. Method(s) Medical genetic residents, medical biochemical fellows, and laboratory genetic and genomic fellows joined a 2-week course. IRB determined this to be an Educational Quality Improvement Project and exempt from full IRB review. Trainees could complete the course without completing the pre/post quizzes to prevent any individual from feeling like they were forced to join this research project. Any trainee that did not complete both the pre and post test were removed from the data set. To off load the metabolic workforce, a Teacher's Assistant Position and dedicated administrative support position were established. In addition, early career lab-based and clinical professionals were invited to join the teaching in a mentee position, and quickly advanced to fully autonomous lecturers. Result(s) The senior metabolic faculty (clinical and lab-based) were initially committing about 16-24 h per 2-week course. With the implementation of a mentor program allowing the addition of a lab-based lecture and multiple clinic-based lectures (taught by senior fellows or early career faculty) led to a reduction to 5-6-hour commitment by the senior faculty members. In addition, this allowed fellows and early faculty members the opportunity to teach and increase their educational portfolio entries (used for promotion at this institution). In addition, we showed that the pre- and post-tests for the trainees showed improvement in content knowledge that was statistically significant (10.5/24a17.5/24, p < 0.001, n = 8 participants). This improvement is similar to the average 7.6-point improvement seen across a larger cohort evaluated in this same learning environment over the past several years (Pending publication). Conclusion(s) By creating a mentored-educator program (for fellow and early career faculty), we were able to reduce the workload of senior metabolic lecturers while maintaining the quality of education for the trainees. Specifically, the use of a Teacher's Assistant was highly regarded as a way to improve learning for the trainees.Copyright © 2023