Comparative Analysis of Junior and Senior Clinician Educator Evaluation of Relevant Articles Within Medical Education

Introduction It may be difficult for junior clinician educators (JCEs) to get a grasp of pertinent literature and determine which are most relevant to their learning, due to limited experience and lack of formalized system to rank all available resources with respect to their value for JCEs. Our study aimed to identify whether senior clinician educators (SCEs) and JCEs differ in their selection of what they perceive as key medical education articles. Methods As a part of the Academic Life in Emergency Medicine (ALiEM) Faculty Incubator program, we developed a series of primer articles for JCEs by identifying and discussing key articles within specific medical education arenas, which were designed to enhance the reader's educational growth. Each set of articles within the primer series were selected based on data collected from JCEs and SCEs, who ranked the specific articles with respect to their perceived relevancy to the JCEs. ANOVA analysis was performed for each of the series to determine whether there was a statistically significant difference between JCE and SCE rating of articles. Results Two-hundred-and-sixteen total articles were evaluated within the nine primer topics. No statistically significant difference was found between the rankings of papers by JCEs and SCEs (effect size: 0.06; 95% CI: -0.27 to 0.40). However, a subgroup analysis of the data found that three of the nine primers showed statistically significant divergence based on seniority (p < 0.05). Conclusions Based on the data, the involvement of JCEs in the consensus-building process was important in identifying divergence in views between JCEs and SCEs in one-third of cases. Our findings suggest that it is important to involve JCEs in selecting articles that are worthwhile for their learning, since SCEs may not fully understand their needs.