Journal Article

7822 A pilot project of foundation doctors performing NIPE teaching for medical students

Wilson, Charlotte, Pampapathi Shana, Kumarasiri Shehani, Bains Kiran, Miller, Nic

2025

Overview

Why did you do this work?To improve undergraduate medical students’ confidence and knowledge in performing the Newborn Infant Physical Examination (NIPE). To provide teaching opportunities to foundation doctors (FDs) in a district general hospital.What did you do?Sessions on how to perform the NIPE were delivered by four FDs rotating through the King’s Mill Hospital paediatric department. This was with the supervision of Dr Bains, the trust Child Health education lead, who shadowed the first two sessions to ensure appropriate supervision. These sessions ran over 2 years for 10 cohorts of medical students. In phase 1 (November 2022 -June 2023), 55 students were taught. In phase 2 (March 2024-July 2024) 72 students were taught owing to increased cohort sizes. Between cohorts there was a handover between foundation doctors leading the sessions. Foundation doctors were selected by Dr Bains to lead the session where it was felt they had demonstrated interest in teaching.Students received a detailed explanation of the purpose and methods of completing a NIPE, followed by an opportunity to watch and then practice the skills under observation in small groups.Students were given a pre and post questionnaire which explored their confidence performing a NIPE and assessed their knowledge. In the first phase this was a 9-question quiz and then progressed to a 10-question quiz to ensure we incorporated all 4 key elements of the screening (hips, heart, eyes and testes).What did you find?Overall, we received 98 responses to the pre-session questionnaire and 71 responses to the post-study questionnaire, which were analysed after each session to improve the next. Unfortunately, the pre-session questionnaire results for one cohort were lost. These values were entirely excluded from the final data set.The average pre-session score was 34% with the average post session score being 80%, an average improvement of 46%.Across both cohorts, the majority of students became more confident with performing the examination. Students gave an average self-rating of 1.8 pre -session compared to 4.2 post session (1 being not at all confident and 5 being very confident).A similar pattern was seen with personal perception of knowledge of the exam and what it involves, with an average self-rating score of 1.35 pre-session compared to 4.25 post session (1 being ‘I know nothing’ and 5 being ‘I know everything’)Feedback comments included:‘Very well taught and clinically relevant’‘Really good and concise with good practical skills at the end’This also resulted in feedback for the FDs involved who could add this teaching to their portfolio as supervised learning events/examples of delivering teaching.What does it mean?This project demonstrates a mutual benefit; giving FDs the opportunity to teach whilst also demonstrating a consistent improvement in students’ knowledge and confidence around the NIPE. Moving forward we are planning to expand this project to focus on supporting more foundation trainees in the region to build their teaching skills.

• Publisher: BMJ Publishing Group LTD
• Subject: Data collection / Feedback / Learner Engagement / Learning / Lifelong Learning / Pediatrics / Teaching Load / Workloads