Pediatric resident perceptions of public health education: learner-based insights into curriculum design and implementation.

OBJECTIVE: The purpose of this research was to evaluate a public health curriculum for pediatric residents from the learners' perspective, exploring resident attitudes, insights, and recommendations as to the most effective and learner-centric approaches to curriculum design and implementation in the context of graduate medical education. METHODS: Forty-five of 59 Children's Hospital of The Kings' Daughters (CHKD) residents participated in focus groups and individual interviews. All sessions took place between June and July 2012 and were audiorecorded, transcribed, and coded for major themes using NVivo software. RESULTS: The 5 major themes identified by this study included: 1) perceptions of public health relevance and impact, 2) time and competing priorities, 3) speaker-audience harmonization, 4) the need for practical solutions, and 5) individual tailoring. Study results paint a distinctive picture of residents' ideal public health curriculum-a less structured, more individualized educational opportunity that prioritizes small group discussions, maximizes speaker-audience interactions, and details a wide array of specific community-based programs and resources available to pediatricians and their patients. CONCLUSIONS: The learner needs identified through this research suggest that effective public health training for residents would include protected time for public health instruction, faculty development workshops, linkages with appropriate local organizations, and opportunities for each resident to pursue his or her own projects. Residencies that wish to address learner preferences in the development and realization of public health training would benefit from considering these characteristics in designing their curriculum.

Scurvy in a 10-year-old boy.

Scurvy, or hypovitaminosis C, is an uncommon condition that exists today primarily within certain unique populations-particularly the elderly subjects, patients with neurodevelopmental disabilities or psychiatric illnesses, or others with unusual dietary habits. Vitamin C is an essential nutrient in the human body, and is important in synthesizing collagen factor whose faulty production is responsible for most of the clinical manifestations of scurvy. These clinical manifestations can include dystrophic or corkscrew hairs, gingival hyperplasia, and weakened blood vessel walls, causing bleeding in the skin, joints, and other organs. Although rare in the Unites States, the presence of scurvy should not be forgotten because of its presence among susceptible populations. Moreover, with its diagnosis, treatment and cure is one of the simplest in modern medicine. We report a case of scurvy in a 10-year-old autistic child.