Abstract Background Pulmonary/Critical Care Medicine (PCCM) fellows have significant opportunities to be educators in the hospital and intensive care unit settings. However, these opportunities are limited in the ambulatory context. Most PCCM fellows graduate with faculty positions that involve ambulatory teaching. Developing these skills is therefore essential in preparation for future practice. Prior near-peer teaching models at the residency level have shown improved confidence in outpatient teaching. However, similar interventions have not been explored at the subspecialty fellowship level. Objective We aimed to develop and implement a near-peer teaching pilot intervention that enhances senior PCCM fellows’ ability to teach in the outpatient environment. Methodology Third-year PCCM fellows (F3s) precepted first-year fellows (F1s) during one half-day clinic, supervised by a PCCM faculty member. F1s saw patients independently, then staffed with both the F3 and the faculty member. F3s provided teaching and feedback on plans to F1s. Faculty supervised encounters and gave feedback to the F3 on their precepting. After the session, F1s, F3s, and faculty completed an anonymous survey evaluating the educational value and logistics of the intervention. Results Preliminary analysis demonstrated that 75% of participating fellows had not previously precepted in an ambulatory setting prior to this curriculum. 4 fellows completed this experience with another 4 to complete it as part of this ongoing pilot. 100% of participating F3s and faculty completed the survey, along with 63% of F1s. On a 10-point Likert scale (0=strongly disagree,10=strongly agree), participants indicated feeling comfortable supervising trainees (mean=7,SD=1.2) and providing feedback (mean=7.7,SD=1.1). F3s reported receiving helpful feedback on their teaching (mean=9,SD=1.2). F1s and faculty importantly noted that clinic workflow was not significantly slowed. All participating fellows expressed interest in careers involving ambulatory precepting. Both F3s and faculty agreed that the experience should continue in future academic years. Conclusions Outpatient precepting requires distinct skills that are not routinely cultivated during PCCM fellowship training, where most teaching experiences occur in the inpatient setting. This pilot curriculum offered an innovative approach to bridge that educational gap by providing structured, experiential opportunities for fellows to refine outpatient teaching skills. Based on positive participant feedback, we plan to expand the number of clinic sessions for each F3 in the next academic year. Beyond enhancing fellows’ readiness for future roles as ambulatory preceptors, this curriculum provides a transferable framework that can be adapted across subspecialty training programs to strengthen outpatient teaching competencies and cultivate well-rounded academic clinicians. This abstract is funded by: None
Sridhar et al. (Fri,) studied this question.