Medical Education Research--EM REAL

The West Virginia University Emergency Medicine Resident Education and Application Lab (REAL) at led by Drs. Christopher Kiefer and Erica Shaver focuses upon two primary areas of investigation—the residency application and selection process. Our group also works to publish innovative curricular instruments utilized in our educational programs in peer-reviewed curricular repositories.

Our residency application research focuses upon how individual data points in an application, like standardized letters of evaluation, USMLE scores, or the medical student performance evaluation, influence program leadership and their decisions to invite. Our primary goal is that by better understanding how these tools are utilized, program directors can change these assessment tools for the better—so that the application process can be driven by objective, comparative, nonbiased information.

Future directions of our work include understanding how these application factors impact performance and the need for remediation in the future—hopefully allowing Program Directors and Clinical Competency Committees to have the ability to accurately predict residents at risk and follow performance for those residents closely.