Simulation Curriculum Improves Emergency Medicine Resident Preparedness for the New American Board of Emergency Medicine Certifying Exam

TL;DR

A simulation curriculum improved emergency medicine residents' self-reported preparedness for a new certifying exam.

Contribution

This study introduces a simulation-based curriculum to prepare residents for the new ABEM Certifying Exam.

Findings

Residents reported significantly higher preparedness after the simulation (mean difference +1.2).

Improvements were observed in all ABEM-tested competencies, with the largest gain in clinical decision-making.

87.5% of participants completed the pre-post survey, showing strong engagement.

Abstract

In 2024, the American Board of Emergency Medicine (ABEM) announced the launch of a new certifying exam that emergency medicine (EM) residency graduates must pass to achieve specialty certification. To date, there are no comprehensive curricula published in the available literature to aid residents in exam preparation.

In this pre-post pilot study, 44% (24/55) of postgraduate year 1 (PGY-1) through PGY-4 EM residents at a single site participated in a four-hour simulated certifying exam curriculum. Learners were asked to complete a four-point Likert scale survey rating self-reported preparedness (very unlikely – very likely) to take the ABEM Certifying Exam, as well as comfort with the ABEM tested competencies, preceding and following the simulation session.

Survey respondents (n = 21; 87.5%) reported an improvement in overall preparedness to take the ABEM Certifying Exam, yielding a pre-post mean difference score of +1.2 (1.9 [unlikely] pre to 3.1 [likely] post, P < .001). Additionally, there was an improvement in all ABEM-tested competencies; pre-post mean difference score ranged from +0.5 (3.0 pre to 3.5 post) for patient-centered communication to +1.1 (2.2 pre to 3.3 post) for clinical decision-making (P < .001 for all competencies).

Given the critical need, and self-reported improvement in preparedness, EM training programs nationwide could consider incorporating a similar simulation curriculum into their didactic experience to help better prepare their learners for the new ABEM Certifying Exam.

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