What constitutes an adequate volume of Pediatrics? Trauma?

[Emurgency]

I understand that pediatrics is the area where most residents feel the weakest and so I'm trying to evaluate different programs in this regard. Obviously it depends on number of pedi rotations (which seems to be changing in the RRC guidelines this year) and having Longitudinal pediatrics, which seems important. But what should be considered the minimum exposure to pediatrics in order to graduate a 3 year EM residency feeling relatively comfortable with pediatrics?

In other words, when evaluating the program's hospital, what is the magic number for # of Pedi ED visits per year? 15K? 30K? 50K?

In a similar vein, what is an adequate minimum number of trauma visits/admissions per year?

I see all these numbers thrown at me at the interviews and I think it would be helpful for me (and others) to develop a better framework to evaluate what programs are advertising..

Thoughts?

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[dotcb]

I don't know the specific visit numbers.

I did 5 months of dedicated peds ED. That seemed like enough.

Likewise, as long as 1 of your sites is a reasonably busy trauma center, that will likely be enough.

 

[deleted109597]

Starting July 1, programs will have to go from 4 months of peds to 5. If they don't have a specific peds ED, then peds has to count for 20% of your patient volume (it used to be 16%).

As far as trauma, I don't have an answer for you, but it doesn't take long to follow ATLS by muscle memory in your sleep.

 

[Emurgency]

But what about the volume of peds seen at the hospital? For example I am considering a program that will no doubt see sick kids but the actual number of peds is pretty low (15k or so I think). Will this be a poor pediatrics training program regardless of the RRC increase or will the difference between this place and a 30K/yr pedi hospital be negligible given the RRC oversight?

 

[deleted109597]

Not sure what you're asking.
You cannot determine poor vs not poor simply by numbers.
If you're at a place that sees 1 kid per day, it will probably be poor. But the difference between 50 and 100 isn't all that great.
Now, if you're at a place where the kids are basically clinic patients, it will be different than if they are all transplant/heart/endocrine nightmare kids.
There's no "right" answer, but there are probably a few wrong answers.