Virginia Research Day 2025

Medical Student Research Education and Simulation

07 Educating Tomorrow’s Physicians: Utilitizing the American Academy of Pediatrics in Medical Student Education and Beyond

Penelope-Marie B. Clanor; Harsha Bhagtani, M.D.; Natasha K. Sriraman, M.D.; Ramu Anandakrishnan, PhD Corresponding author: pclanor@vcom.edu

Edward Via College of Osteopathic Medicine - Virginia Campus

the questionnaire. There were statistically significant differences in the pre-and post-survey results assessing students self-perceived familiarity with resources, resource utilization, and confidence in understanding of the AAP (P-value< 0.005 for all). Discussion: This initial survey supports the idea that a structured workshop with informative presentation can increase medical student knowledge of the AAP. Other medical schools can implement a similar workshop to enhance medical student understanding of the organizations and resources that can benefit them in succeeding throughout school and residency. Continued surveying at other schools can increase the sample size and further enhance result validity.

Background: Medical school curriculum sets the academic foundation for medical students through hundreds of hours of lectures, exams, practicals, and more. However, during the first two preclinical years of medical school, guidance is not specifically geared toward preparing students for residency. Medical students often desire guidance on how to succeed in preparing for clinical rotations and residency throughout pre-clinical and clinical years of school. The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) is a leader in supporting optimal health of children and advancing pediatricians to promote the well-being of their patients. For students, the AAP can aid in preparation for clinical rotations and follow the students until they are a practicing physician. In this quality improvement project, the aim is to assess the knowledge that medical students have about the AAP, and how a structured workshop can improve pre-clinical preparation for residency and increase understanding about the AAP.

Methods: To collect medical students' knowledge about the AAP, an interactive information session was held during a collaborative event with the Board of the Virginia AAP and Edward Via College of Osteopathic Medicine (VCOM). The current President of the Virginia AAP presented information about the organization to a group of medical students recruited through an advertisement of the event. The students completed a pre-survey before the presentation, and a post-survey afterwards. The pre-survey asked students to quantify their understanding of the AAP, to choose the AAP resources available to them, and to rate their confidence in how the AAP can benefit them. The same metrics were asked after the session in the post-survey. A Wilcoxon signed-rank test was used to compare changes in student answers before and after the session. Results: A total of twenty-one first, second, third, and fourth-year VCOM medical students completed

Approved by the VCOM IRB- RECORD # 2024-185.

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