Academic Program
Academic Days
PEM Fellows have a full protected day for education each week and are excused from clinical duties the night prior to ensure they benefit from the educational programming.
Academic days include:
- City wide emergency rounds
- PEM section rounds (A variety of rounds including interesting cases, patient safety rounds, best evidence rounds, procedural skills, and guest speakers)
- Dedicated small group fellow teaching session (on a rotating two-year curriculum)
- Joint teaching afternoons with the FRCPC emergency residency program
Unique Training Opportunities
A few training opportunities are unique to our program:
- Two-year rotating curriculum of high fidelity multi-disciplinary simulation sessions for practicing high acuity low occurrence events
- Access to workshops held by the U of C emergency medicine residency program including advanced procedures cadaveric lab, central line course, advanced airway course
- Training in simulation based education facilitation and debriefing through the formal KidSIM ASSET Foundations and Advanced courses
- Formal training in pediatric point of care ultrasound (POCUS) through the KidSONO modular program created by local experts in POCUS
Point of Care Ultrasound
Our fellows are trained in point of care ultrasound using KidSONO, an online educational platform. This allows learners to choose which topics are most relevant to their practice, and progress at their own pace through peer-reviewed materials. KidSONO tests and provides feedback at various points along the way to allow learners to monitor their own progress and achieve mastery of knowledge and skills. Ultrasound skills are incorporated into the regular academic teaching schedule, with supervised hands on sessions.
Our program was designed and is taught by a multidisciplinary team of PoCUS experts, including individuals from pediatric emergency medicine, pediatric anesthesia, pediatric general surgery, pediatric cardiology and pediatric intensive care. Our training and credentialing are consistent with IFEM, CPoCUS and ACEP guidelines.
Upon completion of our program, our fellows are confident and competent point of care sonographers in each of the core PEM diagnostic and procedural indications.
Scholarship
All trainees are expected to undertake a project related to pediatric emergency medicine, including research, educational, or creative professional activity (such as quality improvement, advocacy, or health promotion). This may include a research protocol development, development of an educational curriculum for a course or group, presentation of continuous QI activities, or other protocol development. Ideally this project will lead to a presentation or publication that would permit peer review in a setting outside of Calgary.
The resident is expected to present their project at a national level conference or scientific meeting, with the default venue being the annual Pediatric Emergency Research Canada (PERC) Meeting.
Significant support is provided in various forms: academic supervisor identified early; access to a university held research course targeted at medical residents; regular peer and academic faculty group reviews of projects; access to expert consultations in the areas of biostatistics/epidemiology; and funding for conference attendance.