The Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education milestones and entrustable professional activities (EPAs) are important assessment approaches but may lack specificity for learners seeking improvement through daily feedback. As in other professions, clinicians grow best when they engage in deliberate practice of well-defined skills in familiar contexts. This growth is augmented by specific, actionable coaching from supervisors. This article proposes a new feedback modality called microskills, which are derived from the psychology, negotiation, and business literature, and are unique in their ability to elicit targeted feedback for trainee development. These microskills are grounded in both clinical and situational contexts, thereby mirroring learners’ cognitive schemas and allowing for more natural skill selection and adoption. When taken as a whole, microskills are granular actions that map to larger milestones, competencies, and EPAs. This article outlines the theoretical justification for this new skills-based feedback modality, the methodology behind the creation of clinical microskills, and provides a worked example of microskills for a pediatric resident on a hospital medicine rotation. Ultimately, microskills have the potential to complement milestones and EPAs and inform feedback that is specific, actionable, and relevant to medical learners.
Though children comprise a large percentage of the population and are uniquely vulnerable to disasters, pediatric considerations are often omitted from regional and hospital-based emergency preparedness. Children’s absence is particularly notable in hazard vulnerability analyses (HVAs), a commonly used tool that allows emergency managers to identify a hazard’s impact, probability of occurrence, and previous mitigation efforts. This paper introduces a new pediatric-specific HVA that provides emergency managers with a quantifiable means to determine how a hazard might affect children within a given region, taking into account existing preparedness most relevant to children’s safety. Impact and preparedness categories within the pediatric-specific HVA incorporate age-based equipment and care needs, long-term developmental and mental health consequences, and the hospital and community functions most necessary for supporting children during disasters. The HVA allows emergency managers to create a more comprehensive assessment of their pediatric populations and preparatory requirements.
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