TOP 67 - A Pediatric Resident Curriculum on Caring for Children with Chronic Conditions

Publication Number: 2820.TOP 67

Dominique Dagdag, McGovern Medical School at the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, Oak Point, TX, United States; Ebony Beaudoin, McGovern Medical School at the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, Houston, TX, United States

Background: Children with medical complexity comprise less than 1% of children in the United States, yet they account for greater than one-third of total pediatric healthcare costs. Residents are not well-equipped to care for children with complex illnesses which further translates to poor health outcomes for these children, according to several studies. Since this patient population requires multi-disciplinary needs, pediatric residents should have established integrated teaching on both the medical, developmental, and psychosocial aspects of serving this population.

Objective: The objective is to implement educational sessions on caring for children with chronic care needs during pediatric resident lectures to improve resident confidence and knowledge. We will teach four presentations at resident lectures and hope to see a 25% increase in comfortability and knowledge from pre- and post-test surveys from July-October 2025.

Design/Methods: The study population is pediatric and internal medicine-pediatric residents present during resident lectures for the Chronic Care Chats and who voluntarily sign up to participate. The sample size will be at least 40 pediatric residents who are present at Academic Half Day for the resident lectures. In July 2025, we established Chronic Care Chats during our resident educational lectures on the following topics: 1) Nutrition and gastrotomy tube care; 2) Palliative care and tracheostomy care; 3) Physical medicine and rehabilitation, durable medical equipment, and therapies; and 4) Case management and transition to adulthood. Each session will last 1-1.5 hours and will occur once a month from July-October.

The study design is survey research. We have partnered with community organization Project Delivery of Chronic Care (Project DOCC), who are 10 parent teachers of children with medical complexity. A focus group with Project DOCC was held in June 2025 prior to the lectures, and the survey questions and lecture objectives were based on Project DOCC's feedback on each topic. We have been conducting pre- and post-surveys via RedCap to evaluate resident comfortability and knowledge. After the last lecture in October, statistical analysis from the pre- and post- surveys will be conducted via paired t-test. The first group will contain the Likert scale response averages from the pre-intervention survey, and this data will be compared to the second group from the post-intervention survey. This project has been funded by the American Academy of Pediatrics Community Access to Child Health (AAP CATCH) Grant and is IRB exempt (HSC-MS-25-0451).

Chronic Care Chat #1 on Nutrition and Gastrotomy Tube Care
Dr. Ashley Boone (PGY-1) practicing how to exchange a G-tube with pediatric surgery and chronic care staff.

Chronic Care Chat #2 on Palliative Care and Tracheostomy Basics
Drs. Sanjana Babu (PGY-3), Dion Kevin (PGY-2), and Alexandra Sova (PGY-3) learning basic trach care during our interactive session with a chronic care respiratory therapist.

Chronic Care Chat #3 on Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation and Therapies
Inpatient rehabilitation physical therapist Mary-Catherine Brooks teaching pediatric residents the different types of durable medical equipment for children with medical complexity.