Curbside Consult with Dr. Jayne 3/30/26

One of my colleagues from medical school is a residency program director. He was having a virtual conversation with his fellow faculty members about the program’s plans for technology and AI-related education in the coming year. He mentioned that he has a friend who practices clinical informatics and has some experience with AI and asked if it was OK to pull me into the chat.

The topics that they had been discussing were basic, including EHR efficiency, inbox management, and accessing the program’s online educational tools. One faculty member had suggested a lecture about AI, but that was the limit of the discussion.

The program is affiliated with a major health system. I was surprised to learn that none of the program’s faculty members are involved with any of the system’s informatics committees. No faculty member has been identified as a physician superuser for the EHR. Faculty members have had no involvement in the development of order sets or other tools, where their input might result in adjustments that would make them more useful for trainees or students.

I quickly figured out that my colleague’s invitation was not only a request for subject matter expertise, but also a cry for help. Because of the time commitments of being program director, he doesn’t feel like he has the bandwidth to lead technology initiatives, so he was looking for assistance with convincing his faculty that stepping up would be beneficial.

We all agreed that an asynchronous chat wasn’t the best venue to discuss the issues. They agreed to extend an upcoming faculty meeting so that I could attend and give some advice. 

In the meantime, I asked them to brainstorm tech-related topics about which they wish they knew more, tech they’ve seen residents and students use but not faculty, understanding of organizational governance and technology policies, and articles they have seen in their specialty literature that address tech-related or educational issues.

I asked them to send those to me in real time so that I could start to put together an agenda for the meeting. I assured them that I would keep their submissions confidential so that they wouldn’t have to worry about what their peers thought about their technology knowledge or lack thereof.

I also asked my colleague to reach out to his health system to ask if they had specific resources that are targeted towards trainees and learners. His program is the only one in his area, but the health system is a multistate organization and has other residency training programs.

With that in mind, I suggested that he reach out to the chairs of graduate medical education at the other sites to see if they had any recommendations. Nothing is worse than reinventing the wheel, but sometimes solving your own problem, you forget about resources that might be available. He agreed to do that before our meeting.

I did some quick web searching and found a number of resources that are available through the specialty’s faculty development organization, including a telemedicine curriculum. I also found a digital health curriculum that had been shared by a residency program at a similarly sized hospital, which seemed like a good start.

I also found some conferences that are related to technology in academic medicine. They are targeted toward staff and faculty from medical schools, but they looked like they would also be useful for residency faculty.

I also investigated the residency program itself. I discovered that it had only a few full-time faculty members, but a greater number of part-time or voluntary community faculty who are involved in precepting the residents. I suggested that those physicians might also be good resources to consult about their use of technology in the real world of private practice as well as their interest in AI and other related topics.

While I was searching for resources, I ran across some curricular areas that weren’t covered during my time in residency and was glad that they are now part of training. During my early career, medical aid in dying consisted of a single headline-worthy practitioner. It’s now available in multiple states.

I also ran across a free curriculum for managing personal finances, to which all medical students and residents should be exposed. Personal finance is required for high school graduation in a number of states, but I still encounter students, residents, and even young attending physicians who don’t understand the basics of managing their debt and resources.

The curriculum element that most warmed my heart covered using evidence-based resources in clinical practice. It’s one thing to talk about evidence-based medicine, but another to actually incorporate recommendations into patient care, particularly given challenges with insurance coverage of services and the rise in patients who are skeptical about medical recommendations.

The curriculum also includes surveys that assess the effectiveness of the learning module, which included a pre-test to uncover what residents already knew and a post-test to evaluate whether they felt the module made them better prepared for the realities of practice.

In the ultimate “copy off the student next to you” move, I found a program in the same specialty that listed its entire technology curriculum on its website, likely as part of their residency recruiting strategy. The program emphasizes that it strives to “foster an environment where technology enables and enhances patient care.” I did a quick comparison with my own residency program as well as one for which I serve as a preceptor and I didn’t see anything like that on their websites. I wonder if this is a new trend for programs to specifically call that out or whether that program is ahead of the game for technology enablement.

After a couple of days, I began receiving emails from the faculty members with their ideas and questions. One noted that he was glad that I had offered a confidential option to submit his thoughts since he really doesn’t understand “all the fuss about AI” and felt that he must be missing something but didn’t want to seem “like a fossil” by asking.

Another mentioned that she has a particular interest in technology because her husband works for a company that handles a lot of process automation. She didn’t feel like she knew the avenues for participating at the hospital level and was too overwhelmed with other duties to ask.

The faculty meeting occurred last week, and I thought it went well. I think that they appreciated having a relative outsider who they could bounce ideas off of. They were interested in the program that I had found that listed its technology curriculum online and were also excited about some learning modules that had been created by programs elsewhere in the health system.

I had to do very little during the call. They seemed motivated by the fact that other programs offer specific technology features to residents. I’m not sure how this program fared in the recent residency match, but if they didn’t match their ideal candidates, it might be a big motivation.

This started as a favor for a friend, but it made me wonder if there is some room for consulting efforts around this topic. I’m not looking to take on new work, but I would imagine that if one program is struggling in this regard, others are likely in the same position. I will be asking about that at my next informatics conference.

Do residency programs at your institution use technology as a recruiting tool, or are they just trying to keep up? Leave a comment or email me.

Email Dr. Jayne.