Unique educational program in critical care medicine for the general internist

Objective: To determine the effect of a unique educational program in critical care medicine on the attitudes, knowledge, and skills of general internists who care for critically ill patients. Design: Comparison of objective assessments and self-assessments obtained before and after the one-year educational program. Setting/participants: Eighteen general internists practicing in a 350-bed university-affiliated community teaching hospital. Results: After the program, the internists felt significantly more competent in, knowledgeable about, comfortable with, and satisfied with caring for critically ill patients than they did when completing the precourse self-assessments (p<0.05). Participants felt particularly more comfortable with managing ventilator patients and leading the advanced cardiac life-support team (p<0.05). Comfort levels for other commonly performed critical care procedures did not vary. No significant change in knowledge test scores was noted from before to after the one-year program (61% vs 60%). Residents and nurses rated the internists’ overall ability in critical care medicine to be the same as that of senior medical residents. They also favorably rated the internists on humanism, teaching skills, and interpersonal interactions. Residents also appreciated the decrease in their night call because of the program. Conclusions: This unique educational program increased comfort and satisfaction of general internists caring for critically ill patients. The program was well accepted by residents and nurses because of favorable interaction with the internists and a decrease in resident night-call responsibility. This curriculum is recommended to other teaching hospitals. Presented at the 14th annual meeting of the Society of General Internal Medicine, May 2, 1991, Seattle, Washington.