Common Curriculum and Didactics

Graduate Medical Education provides a full range of education courses and mentoring opportunities to guide fellows through each step of training. From orientation to preparing for faculty positions, our staff offers the knowledge and hands-on experience fellows need to achieve success in their clinical practice.

Fellows orientation

GME provides a centralized orientation to give fellows basic employee information and a brief Fellowship 101 course. This two-day experience focuses on survive and thrive topics to help fellows understand the processes and resources that support them as well as our unique patient population.

Common core curriculum

This monthly Core Curriculum Conference is required for first-year fellows and focuses on ACGME Competencies in Professionalism, Communication and Systems-Based Practice. Topics include:

Self assessment
Leadership
Cognitive bias
Professionalism
Effective communication
Medical ethics
Change management
Health care disparities
Value-based care
Health care systems

Problem Solving for Fellows

Problem Solving for Fellows is a participative learning experience at Children's Mercy designed to allow participants to practice an A3 mindset for problem solving. It is a framework that will be used throughout your career to continuously improve the quality of patient care and productivity of your work environment and clinical teams.

In Problem Solving for Fellows you will learn and apply key questions and a variety of tools to problem solve an identified problem in your area. This framework for problem solving will help you remain current and continuously improve your practice.

For completion of this expectation you will be required to attend a series of coaching sessions in order to solve a local problem.

Overall learning objectives

Demonstrates the ability to comprehend information from medical and scientific literature and apply findings into quality improvement project(s).
Actively participates in quality improvement initiatives, projects and/or conferences within the department or hospital.
Regularly uses technology to advance patient care and enhance self-improvement.
Recognizes the observed needs and opportunities for improving quality of patient care and is able to lead the actions within the systems.
Applies systems thinking to make clinical decisions that balance cost and risk-benefit ratios.
Identifies all key stakeholders prior to implementing change to lead multi-disciplinary quality improvement team that enhance patient outcomes.
Produces scholarly work as a result of quality improvement project(s); presentations at conferences, national meetings and publications in peer reviewed journals.
Applies quality improvement tools and methods appropriately to projects.
Uses data to measure quality improvement work.
Complete a Problem Solving A3 for a local problem.

Experiential Series

Coaching sessions occur once monthly between November–May.

Office of Faculty Development sessions and workshops

Each month, the Office of Faculty Development offers multiple sessions (45 minutes) and half-day workshops around topics related to being a faculty member in an academic medical setting. Perfect for the fellow whose career includes academic medicine. Offerings change from year to year but always include information on teaching scholarship, performance improvement, personal and career development.

Biostatics course

This annual biostatics course is designed for fellows interested in learning statistical principles and research methodologies commonly applied in medical studies. Participants will also gain hands-on experience in SPSS software. Topics include:

Descriptive statistics
Summary table and statistical graphics
Probability theory
Hypothesis testing and research ethics

Grant writing curriculum

Fellows will be placed in cohorts with a coach for monthly sessions to guide the creation of their first grant application. Once the fellow has completed the course, he or she is eligible to apply for a Children's Mercy Hospital Clinical Fellowship Research Award (up to $15,000).

Scholarship oversight committee

The Scholarship Oversight Committee provides guidance and support for trainees. The committee includes a minimum of three voting members. A chairperson is appointed or approved by the program director during the first six months of fellowship. The chairperson must be a faculty member of the fellow's subspecialty and be actively involved in teaching fellows.

Fellowship Community Lunch and Learns

The Fellowship Community Lunch and Learns serves as a forum for topics not otherwise covered in other series. These informal lunches might include topics like: