The Breakfast Club: Enhancing Emergency Medicine Education Through Spaced Retrieval and Elaborative Interrogation Techniques

Background: Emergency medicine (EM) residencies present a challenging educational environment. Despite extensive research supporting cognitive learning strategies such as retrieval practice, spaced repetition, and elaborative interrogation in improving knowledge retention, these strategies remain underutilized in graduate medical education (GME) settings. There is a critical need to develop and implement novel teaching methodologies that enhance resident learning and retention without detracting from patient care. This study aims to address this need by integrating said techniques in an innovative curriculum titled "The Breakfast Club." Prior research in non-GME education settings has demonstrated the efficacy of these techniques in promoting deeper understanding and longer retention of complex topics. We hypothesize that incorporating these strategies will positively impact EM residents' comprehension and retention. Methods: The curriculum was implemented in a single-institution EM residency program as a pilot study. Residents in the intervention group participated voluntarily in a hour-long virtual session facilitated by one instructor utilizing cognitive learning techniques; residents in the control group participated only in the standard program curriculum. A pretest and postintervention assessment were used to compare knowledge comprehension and retention at short-term and long-term intervals. Questions were developed and reviewed by EM educators for content validity and quality assurance. Results: = 7) demonstrated improved performance compared with baseline, scoring 77% on short-term multiple-choice question (MCQ) assessments and 69% on long-term MCQ assessment, compared with a baseline score of 53%. Conclusion: A brief, small group intervention using cognitive learning techniques was easy to implement, required minimal resources, and engaged residents to improve their medical knowledge in gastrointestinal pathophysiology. Further exploration with a larger cohort and varying topics will help establish whether these techniques can serve as a cornerstone for evidence-based teaching strategies in EM education.