198 Views

131 - Parental leave policies- improving physical medicine and rehabilitation residents access and perception

Thursday, February 27, 2025

5:00 PM - 6:30 PM MST

Presenting Author(s)

CS

Casey Salandra, DO

Resident Physician
UT Southwestern
DALLAS, Texas, United States

Co-Author(s)

KB

Kristin Bristow, MD

Resident
UT Southwestern
Bedford, Texas, United States
KS

Kelly Scott, MD

Professor, PM&R Residency Program Director
UT Southwestern Medical Center
Carrollton, Texas, United States

Objectives: Transitioning into parenthood during residency can be a stressful and confusing time. There are many differing policies guiding how residents approach taking parental leave while being able to graduate on time and sit for boards. We aimed to improve resident information access and understanding of parental leave by creating an educational document summarizing policies and procedures relevant to our program.

Design: This was a quality improvement study at a single Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation residency program. 33 residents were asked to answer questions on their understanding of parental leave policies including if they knew where to go to access information and if they felt the program is supportive about transitions into parenthood. Together with our program director, we created a comprehensive document summarizing medical, caregiver and parental leave policies. This included institution-specific, ACGME, ABPMR, and state policies. After providing residents with the educational document, they were surveyed again with similar questions to view any changes in perception and understanding.

Results: 24 of 33 residents responded to the initial survey and 14 of 33 responded to the follow-up survey. During the initial survey, 92% of residents stated they did not have a good understanding of parental leave policy and 87.5% did not know where to go to access information. Only 16.7% of responding residents said they felt like the program was equipped to support a resident’s transition into parenthood. After residents were given access to information, 85.7% of residents stated they have a better understanding of parental leave policy. 100% of residents stated they know where to access information. 50% of residents now felt that the program is equipped to support residents in their transition to parenthood.

Conclusions: Transparency about policy and increased access to information improved resident perceptions on the ability of their residency program to support their transition into parenthood.