Navigating Challenging Conversations: The Interplay Between Inquiry and Knowledge Drives Preparation for Future Learning.

Introduction: While some physicians hone their skills through informal learning in clinical practice, others do not. There is a lack of understanding of why some physicians seek improvement and how they use the workplace context to build their capabilities. Because physicians rarely pursue formal professional development activities to improve communication skills, examining physician-patient communication offers a powerful opportunity to illuminate important aspects of preparation for future learning in the workplace. Methods: This qualitative observational study involved over 100 hours of observation of eight pediatric rehabilitation physicians as they interacted with patients and families at an academic teaching hospital in 2018-2020. Detailed field notes of observations, post-observation interviews, and exit interviews were the data sources. Data collection and analysis using a constructivist grounded theory approach occurred iteratively, and themes were identified through constant comparative analysis. Results: Through their daily work, experienced physicians employ 'habits of inquiry' by constantly seeking a better understanding of how to navigate challenging conversations in practice through monitoring and attuning to situational and contextual cues, taking risks and navigating uncertainty while exploring new and varied ways of practicing, and seeking why their strategies are successful or not. Discussion: Engaging in communication challenges drives physician learning through an interplay between habits of inquiry and knowledge: inquiry into how to improve their communication supported by existing conceptual knowledge to generate new strategies. These 'habits of inquiry' prompt continual reinvestment in problem solving to refine existing knowledge and to build new skills for navigating communication challenges in practice.

Productive struggle and failing safely: implications for developing adaptive expertise in communication.

Navigating difficult conversations is a complex task that requires flexible and adaptive approaches. Residents developing this skill may initially struggle or fail, and require support. However, this experience may prepare residents for future learning which is essential to adaptive expertise. Limited understanding of how residents learn from failure in the workplace restricts the ability to maximize its potential benefits. The purpose of this study was to explore the role failure plays in learning to navigate difficult conversations during workplace learning. A constructivist grounded theory study was conducted using semi-structured interviews of 13 physicians (subspecialty residents and newly graduated physicians) from a Division of Developmental Paediatrics between 2017 and 2018. The authors used constant comparative analysis to identify themes iteratively. Themes were identified both inductively and deductively using the conceptual framework of adaptive expertise. Through independently leading difficult conversations, physicians were able to recognize that the failure that occurred in these encounters, prompted them to generate new knowledge which led to deeper conceptual understanding, thus supporting development of adaptive expertise. However, participants indicated that staff physicians often protect residents from difficult conversations, which limits their opportunity to receive feedback and engage in learning. Residents participate in difficult conversations that challenge them to go beyond their existing knowledge. Providing residents with opportunity to lead difficult conversations with patients and families while being supported by staff supervisors, allows for struggling through learning, which leads to a deeper conceptual understanding and supports development of adaptive expertise.

Examining the Impact of Dialogic Learning on Critically Reflective Practice.

PURPOSE: While research is beginning to reveal the potential of dialogue in sparking critical reflection (critically reflective ways of seeing), additional research is needed to guide the teaching of critical reflection toward enabling critically reflective practice (critically reflective ways of seeing and doing). An experimental study was conducted to investigate the impact of dialogic learning on critically reflective practice, compared to discussion-based learning. The dialogic intervention integrated the theory of Mikhail Bakhtin with the theory of critical reflection and critical disability studies. METHOD: In interprofessional groups of 4, medical, occupational therapy, and speech-language pathology students were randomly assigned to a learning condition that used a reflective discussion or critically reflective dialogue about a pediatric patient case. All participants were then randomly assigned a clinical report for a novel pediatric patient and asked to write a hypothetical clinical letter to the child's school. Hierarchical logistic regression models were constructed to estimate the probabilities of sentences and letters being critically reflective. RESULTS: The probability of sentences being critically reflective was significantly higher for the dialogue condition (0.26, 95% CI [0.2, 0.33]), compared to the discussion condition (0.11, 95% CI [0.07, 0.15]). Likewise, the probability of letters being critically reflective was significantly higher for the dialogue condition (0.26, 95% CI [0.15, 0.4]), compared to the discussion condition (0.04, 95% CI [0.01, 0.16]). In both conditions, the probability of a letter being critically reflective was positively associated with the proportion of critically reflective sentences. CONCLUSIONS: The results demonstrate dialogic learning prepared students to enact critically reflective practice when writing mock clinical letters. Students who participated in a dialogue engaged in a collaborative process of critical reflection and subsequently applied that way of seeing in the individual act of writing a letter. This study highlights how Bakhtin's theory of dialogue can advance critical pedagogy.

Critically reflective practice and its sources: A qualitative exploration.

CONTEXT: Critical reflection may improve health professionals' performance of the social roles of care (eg collaboration) in indeterminate zones of practice that are ambiguous, unique, unstable or value-conflicted. Research must explore critical reflection in practice and how it is developed. In this study, we explored what critical reflection consisted of in a context known for indeterminacy, and to what sources participants attributed their critically reflective insights and approaches. METHODS: The study context was the interface between health care and education for children with chronic conditions or disabilities necessitating health-related recommendations and supports (eg accommodations or equipment) at school. We conducted a secondary analysis of 42 interview transcripts from an institutional ethnographic study involving health professionals, school-based educators and parents of children with chronic conditions or disabilities. We coded all transcripts for instances of critical reflection, moments that seemed to lack but could benefit from critical reflection, and participant-attributed sources of critically reflective insights. RESULTS: Critically reflective practice involved getting to know the other, valuing and leveraging different forms and sources of knowledge, identifying and communicating workarounds (ie strategies to circumvent imperfect systems), seeing inequities, and advocating as collaborators, not adversaries. Participants invariably attributed critically reflective insights to personal experiences such as former careers or close personal relationships. CONCLUSIONS: This study shows that personal experiences and connections inspire critically reflective views, and that being critically reflective is not a binary trait possessed (or not) by individuals. It is learnable through personally meaningful experiences. Health professions education could aim to preserve philosophical space for personal experience as a source of learning and integrate evidence-informed approaches to foster critically reflective practice.

Can adaptive expertise, reflective practice, and activity theory help achieve systems-based practice and collective competence?

Physicians must function as integral members of the complex social systems in which they work to support the health of their patients; competency-based education frameworks describe this function of physicians in terms of systems- based practice, advocacy, and collaboration. Yet education for these social competencies continues to present challenges, perhaps because medical education has tended to focus less on social systems and more on traditional healthcare systems. In this paper, we use a clinical example from the discipline of Developmental Pediatrics, that of early identification of autism spectrum disorder (ASD), as an illustration of a socially complex zone of practice necessitating systems-based practice. We first explore this practice context through the framings of collective competence and activity theory to represent the complex practices and systems involved in identifying ASD. We then align these framings of the practice context and complexity with two bodies of education theory, adaptive expertise and reflective practice. We argue that these approaches to education will prepare learners to be more aware of and responsive to the dynamic needs of the complex and intersecting systems in which they will practice.

Promoting the Development of Adaptive Expertise: Exploring a Simulation Model for Sharing a Diagnosis of Autism With Parents.

PURPOSE: To explore how a simulation model promoted the development of integrated competencies associated with adaptive expertise in senior health professions trainees as they learned to share a diagnosis of autism with parents. METHOD: A qualitative instrumental case study method was used at the University of Toronto in 2014 to explore what eight developmental pediatrics residents and two clinical psychology interns learned from participating in a simulation model designed to enable trainees to practice sharing a diagnosis of autism with parents. This model incorporated variability (three cases), active experimentation in a safe environment, and feedback from multiple perspectives (peers, faculty, standardized patients, and a parent). Field notes were collected, and semistructured interviews were conducted to explore what participants learned. Constant comparative analysis was used to identify themes iteratively. Team analysis continued until a stable thematic structure was developed and applied to the entire data set. RESULTS: Four themes were identified. Three themes described how participating in the simulation model changed residents' and interns' approaches to sharing a diagnosis of autism with parents from using a structured, scripted framework to share the diagnosis; to being flexible within the structured framework; and, finally, to being attentive and responsive to parents by adapting and creating new approaches for sharing the diagnosis. The fourth theme described how the multiple perspectives in the simulation model prompted learners to develop adaptive approaches. CONCLUSIONS: This simulation model helped residents and interns move beyond use of a structured, scripted communication framework toward development of adaptive expertise.

Chromosome 12p Deletion Spanning the GRIN2B Gene Presenting With a Neurodevelopmental Phenotype: A Case Report and Review of Literature.

The GRIN2B (glutamate receptor, ionotropic, N-methyl-d-aspartate 2B) gene, located in the short arm of chromosome 12, encoding the NR2B subunit of the N-methyl-D-aspartate receptor, has recently been recognized to play an important role in corticogenesis and brain plasticity. Deletions in the short arm of chromosome 12 are rare. Hemizygous loss of function of the GRIN2B gene results in developmental delay, whereas gain of function leads to epilepsy, and infantile spasms in particular. In addition, GRIN2B variants have been associated with autism spectrum disorder and schizophrenia. Here the authors report a child with global developmental delay, autistic behavioural features, central hypotonia, dysmorphic features and isolated congenital anomalies of the fingers and toes, and a de novo heterozygous deletion in chromosome locus 12p13.2-p13.1, involving loss of several genes, including GRIN2B. This report and our review of the literature help clarify the distinct phenotypes associated with loss or gain of GRIN2B function.

Integrating competencies: exploring complex problem solving through case formulation in developmental pediatrics.

PURPOSE: To understand how experienced clinicians formulate cases and to use this understanding to explore the broader processes involved in how clinicians solve complex problems in their daily work. Case formulation is a process that allows clinicians to provide a tentative explanation for why a patient with a certain condition presents in a particular way at a particular time. METHOD: In this constructivist grounded theory study, the authors conducted semistructured interviews with 12 physicians (9 experienced clinicians, 3 new graduates and residents) from the University of Toronto Division of Developmental Pediatrics between July and December 2012. They used a constant comparative analysis to identify themes and iteratively developed a thematic structure, which one researcher applied to the entire data set. They maintained a detailed audit trail throughout the process. RESULTS: Experienced clinician participants articulated three interconnected themes that characterize their complex problem solving during case formulation: (1) interpreting individual patient factors in the context of medical and clinical knowledge, (2) strategically co-constructing the case formulation with parents and team members, and (3) refining the case formulation over time. CONCLUSIONS: Findings suggest that these interpretive, strategic, and longitudinal processes appear to be central to the complex problem solving of experienced clinicians engaged in case formulation. They illuminate how clinicians integrate multiple competencies when they solve complex problems in their daily work. Exploring this integration of competencies has broader implications for understanding expertise and expert development and may inform pedagogical practices that promote the development of complex problem solving in trainees.

Residents as health advocates: The development, implementation and evaluation of a child advocacy initiative at the University of Toronto (Toronto, Ontario).

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVE: Advocacy is an integral part of a paediatrician's role. The Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada has identified advocacy as one of the essential Canadian Medical Education Directives for Specialists competencies, and participation in child advocacy work as an important component of paediatric residency training. The objective of the present paper was to describe the development, implementation and evaluation of the first four years of the child advocacy initiative at the University of Toronto (Toronto, Ontario). METHODOLOGY: Ideas for community child advocacy projects were generated through a literature review, and a link to a local elementary school was identified. Teacher and parent focus groups were conducted to identify areas for resident involvement. Workshops were then developed, implemented and evaluated by paediatric residents. RESULTS: Six child advocacy projects between 2001 and 2004 were conducted based on results from the focus groups. These included annual clothing drives, as well as workshops for parents and children about nutrition, safety, parenting, illness management and basic first aid. More than 95% of parents reported that the workshops were useful or very useful, more than 92% felt that they learned something new and more than 83% wanted the residents to return for further workshops. Teachers and residents gave positive informal feedback. CONCLUSIONS: Through the child advocacy initiative, paediatric residents had the opportunity to develop skills in advocacy, learn about the determinants of child health and become community partners in advocating for children. Such an initiative can be incorporated into the residency curriculum to help residents develop competency in advocacy.

Clinical features, investigations and management of adolescents with polycystic ovary syndrome.

BACKGROUND: Polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) is defined as chronic anovulation with evidence of hyperandrogenism, after the exclusion of secondary causes. It is commonly linked to obesity and the presence of the metabolic syndrome. OBJECTIVES: To review the clinical features and medical assessment of adolescents referred for PCOS to gynecology or endocrinology services at The Hospital for Sick Children (Toronto, Ontario). METHODS: A chart review was conducted of all adolescents with PCOS referred during a one-year period. Measures included clinical findings, investigations and management. RESULTS: Forty-one adolescent girls, with a mean age +/- SD of 14.7+/-1.5 years, were reviewed. Common presenting complaints were menstrual irregularities in 35 of 41 girls (85%) and hirsutism in 28 of 41 girls (68%), with 32 of 41 adolescents (78%) having more than one complaint. The majority (31 of 38 [82%]) were overweight or obese. Features associated with the metabolic syndrome (hypertension, dyslipidemia, insulin resistance and obesity) were identified in some adolescents, but were not consistently assessed. Blood pressure was assessed in 38 adolescents, fasting plasma glucose in 27, triglycerides in 22 and cholesterol in 21. Only four of 28 adolescents (15%) who underwent pelvic ultrasound demonstrated ovarian cysts. Investigations and management differed somewhat between endocrinologists and gynecologists. Most adolescents (34 of 41 [83%]) received pharmacological treatment: oral contraceptive pill (21 of 34 [62%]); intermittent medroxyprogesterone acetate to induce withdrawal bleeding (nine of 34 [26%]); metformin (two of 34 [6%]); or oral contraceptive pill and antiandrogen (two of 34 [6%]). CONCLUSIONS: Adolescents with PCOS are at risk of developing metabolic abnormalities. Polycystic ovaries were not a consistent finding. The most commonly prescribed treatment was the oral contraceptive pill. Greater attention should be placed on screening adolescents with PCOS for diabetes, hypertension and dyslipidemia, allowing for earlier identification and management of potentially modifiable cardiovascular risk factors.

Childhood acute myelomonocytic leukemia (AML-M4) presenting as catastrophic antiphospholipid antibody syndrome.

: The authors describe a 15-year-old girl presenting with a cerebral ischemic stroke as the first manifestation of catastrophic antiphospholipid antibody syndrome secondary to acute myeloid leukemia (AML). Despite treatment with anticoagulants, therapeutic plasma exchange, and chemotherapy, the patient developed multiorgan thromboses and failure, eventually culminating in death. This unusual presentation of AML has not been previously described in children. Clinical features of antiphospholipid antibody syndrome and current knowledge regarding its association with malignancies are reviewed.

Medical decision-making and information needs in end-stage renal disease patients.

Health information and decision-making are increasingly important to patients with diverse illnesses. The aim of this study was to examine health information needs and decision-making in individuals with end-stage renal disease (ESRD) and to examine the influence of age and gender. A self-report survey was administered to 197 consecutive ESRD patients receiving renal replacement therapy. Their mean age was 52.8 years; 58.2% were male, 64.3% were on hemodialysis, and 35.7% on peritoneal dialysis. Actual participation levels in decision-making were not necessarily in agreement with the preferred degree of participation. Eighty percent of patients wanted the health care team (HCT) to make their treatment decisions for them, but only 40% of those who preferred autonomous and 30% of those who preferred shared decision making with their HCT reported that this was their actual experience. Consequently, many more patients perceived that their decision-making was made by their HCT than preferred this. No significant gender differences were observed; however, older participants preferred and experienced their HCT make their treatment decisions (P<.05). All patients wanted high levels of information with some differences by gender and age. HCT should strive to ascertain and meet the information needs and treatment decision-making roles preferred by individual patients.