Australasian emergency physicians: A learning and educational needs analysis. Part six: differences in confidence, exposure to learning and expressed learning needs by subgroups of Australasian emergency physicians

Abstract

Objective: To determine differences in the confidence and learning needs between subgroups of Fellows of the Australasian College for Emergency Medicine (FACEM), according to sex, type of hospital of principal employment, region of practice in Australasia, year of obtaining the fellowship and percentage of hours worked clinically.

Method: Mailed survey of all FACEM with multiple Likert scale options.

Results: Male emergency physicians (EP) more often expressed confidence in 14 of 58 tasks, but female EP more often expressed a strong desire for continuing professional development (CPD) in 8. EP working in private hospitals were more likely to find lack of conference in their contracts a barrier to participation in CPD (28% [CI 14.1-47.8]vs 7.3% [CI 5.2-10.1]; P = 0.003). EP obtaining their fellowship before 1990 were more confident in 13 of 25 non-clinical tasks than others but had similar confidence in clinical skills. Although EP who spent 30% or less on clinical work expressed confidence more frequently in a range of non-clinical skills, they were less confident for paediatric emergencies, central lines, orthopaedics and tube thoracostomy. There were few variations between Australian states and territories and New Zealand in confidence of EP. EP in regional and rural centres nominated geographical factors (31.3% [CI 21.2-43.4]vs 17.2% [CI 13.9-21.3]; P = 0.012), other colleagues being at the same conference (46.9% [CI 35.2-58.9]vs 28.3% [CI 24.2-32.9]; P = 0.005) and inability to use their conference leave (48.4% [CI 36.6-60.4]vs 33.1% [CI 28.7-37.8]; P = 0.024) as significant barriers more frequently than their city colleagues.

Conclusion: These findings might assist planning CPD for EP.