WIP 48 - Exploring pediatric residents needs in experiential learning and applying cultural safety for Indigenous children and families

Publication Number: WIP 48.7577

Anna Wang, Universite de Montreal Faculty of Medicine, Montréal, PQ, Canada; Véronique Anne Pelletier, General Pediatrics - CHU Ste-Justine, Montreal, PQ, Canada; Sandrine Filiatrault, Universite de Montreal Faculty of Medicine, MONTRÉAL, PQ, Canada; Sandro Echaquan, Université de Montréal Fac. Nursing, Joliette, PQ, Canada; Ryan Giroux, Unity Health Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada; Louis-Philippe Thibault-Lemyre, CHU Sainte-Justine, Montreal, PQ, Canada

Background: Indigenous patients and families (First Nation, Inuit, and Métis in Canada, or American Indian and Alaska Native in the US) experience inequality in healthcare settings, impacting the care they receive. Cultural safety aims to mitigate inequities and seeks to bridge these gaps through safe and reflective practices. As Indigenous patients seek care at pediatric tertiary care centers, pediatric resident physicians will inevitably care for these patients. Didactic curriculum is often already integrated into the pediatric residency curriculum; however, residents’ needs concerning experiential knowledge (i.e. working directly with Indigenous children and families in a clinical setting) have not been identified. Little educational material exists to guide residents on adopting a culturally safe and reflective practice during experiential learning with Indigenous patients in a pediatric training setting.

Objective: The main objective is to identify the perceived needs of residents regarding experiential training in cultural safety with Indigenous people in a Canadian pediatric tertiary care hospital. A secondary objective is to identify strategies and solutions for implementing practice-oriented cultural safety training with Indigenous populations in a pediatric clinical learning environment.

Design/Methods: An online questionnaire will be sent to pediatrics residents. It has been developed in collaboration with Indigenous healthcare professionals. It includes open-ended questions about residents' prior experiences, their preferred methods of experiential training, and Likert scale statements on perceived needs in Indigenous cultural safety. Thematic analysis and descriptive statistics will be used for analysis. The project received institutional support and should be approved by the local IRB during the next month. For solicitation and recruitment purposes, the project will be presented during a residents’ academic half-day. The questionnaire will be distributed by December 2024. Analysis will take place in Winter 2025, with final results expected by the end of February 2025.