Abstracts

Rationale:

• With almost 3 million Americans impacted, epilepsy is a prevalent, morbid, and often intractable neurological condition for which crucial treatment and knowledge gaps exist.


• A 2012 Institute of Medicine (IOM) report identified educating neurology residents/trainees as a key element of improving epilepsy care.


• Given the myriad challenges posed by COVID-19, 2020 was a year broadly characterized by adaptation; medical education was no exception. As such, it was imperative to responsively and creatively provision educational initiatives on a remote, virtual basis while retaining maximum interactivity, dynamism, and overarching impact on clinical practice.

Methods:

• Creative Educational Concepts (CEC) has developed and delivered the Neurology Residents Scholar Program (NRSP) for 16 consecutive years, and as of 2020, this multi-day, immersion activity in epileptology has reached more than 1,200 neurology residents/child neurology fellows.


• The NRSP is designed in accordance with American Academy of Neurology (AAN) curricular standards and Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME) core competencies.


• Together with a team of A/V and Zoom experts, CEC delivered the 2020 NRSP on a fully virtual basis using a "central command center," pre-meeting Zoom practice sessions for attendees, faculty lecture pre-recordings, live Zoom polling, interactive Zoom breakouts, case study workshops, and expert Q&A, all housed in a downloadable mobile app.


• Outcomes data capture was achieved virtually via live Zoom polls (pre-test, post-test, intra-activity cases) and external SurveyMonkey links (activity evaluations).

Results:

• In spite of pandemic-related obstacles, the 2020 NRSP leveraged technology to achieve meaningful advances in neurology resident/child neurology fellow confidence, knowledge, and intention to change practice.


• Improvements in Confidence:


• Identifying seizure etiology (94% post-activity vs. 61% pre-activity)


• Interpreting EEGs (79% post-activity vs. 34% pre-activity)


• Managing seizures with genetic etiologies (73% post-activity vs. 28% pre-activity)


• Managing antiepileptic drug therapies (88% post-activity vs. 63% pre-activity)


• Integrating novel/newly-approved agents for pediatric epilepsy (65% post-activity vs. 20% pre-activity)


• Improvements in Knowledge:


• Seizure etiology in special populations (98% post-activity vs. 77% pre-activity)


• Managing psychiatric comorbidities (85% post-activity vs. 52% pre-activity)


• Treating epilepsy in women's health (88% post-activity vs. 69% pre-activity)


• Impact on Clinical Practice:


• 96% of attendees said the information presented would enable them to improve the practice of their interprofessional epilepsy care team


• 96% of attendees said the information presented would enable them to make changes to their current clinical practice


• Attendee Satisfaction with Virtual Pivot


• 92% of attendees rated CEC's Zoom functionality and technological fluency in virtually delivering the NRSP as either excellent or good

Conclusions: As evidenced by 2020 NRSP outcomes, an adaptive, Zoom-based virtual pivot of a multi-day immersion activity is a viable educational modality for improving neurology trainee confidence, knowledge, and clinical practice in epileptology.

Funding: Please list any funding that was received in support of this abstract.: Commercial support was provided for the 2020 NRSP from the following: Greenwich Biosciences, UCB, Eisai, Neurelis, and SK Life Science, Inc.