Drs. Laura O'Neill (GW MD and GSEHD Master Teacher Leadership), Priti Bhansali (GW MD and GSEHD Master Teacher Leadership), and Ellen Goldman published, “'Can you help me think this through?' How pediatric hospitalists learn from informal peer consultation," in the January 2024 edition of the Journal of Hospital Medicine. The article describes Dr. O'Neill's master's research study framed by Kolb's Experiential Learning Theory of Growth and Development.
Per the abstract:
Informal peer consultation (IPC), also called curbside consultation, is a common practice in medicine. Research has shown that physicians use IPC but how this learning occurs during the process has not been studied. This basic qualitative study describes how pediatric hospitalists learn during IPC, framed by Kolb's (2015) Experiential Learning Theory of Growth and Development. Eleven pediatric hospitalists were interviewed. De-identified transcripts were coded for key themes using inductive methods. The main prompt for informal peer consultation was the perception of uncertainty. Three themes describe the learning process: “Eliciting Perspectives,” “Thinking Aloud Together,” and “Experiencing Validation. A fourth theme, “Acknowledging Value,” described the importance of IPC for modeling how to manage uncertainty with patients' caregivers and medical trainees. By describing the learning process, the results have implications for physicians who engage in IPC and may inform faculty-level professional development initiatives to improve the IPC process.