Weekly Grand Rounds Structure

[Tammy L. Smith, C-TAGME]

Our program is currently discussing the value of our current grand rounds format.  We are looking at how to make it more valuable and engaging for both faculty and residents.

Do you have a “best practice” for your weekly Grand Rounds?  Do you require all faculty to attend as many GR lectures as possible aside from emergent surgeries, vacations, conferences, etc?  Do the majority of your teaching faculty attend and participate?   What is the structure of your weekly Grand Rounds?  We do a 7 am Indications Conference, an 8:00 am lecture and follow it with either Basic Science or OITE review dependent upon time of year.

If you want to share how you increased faculty engagement and attendance for your weekly grand rounds we would love to hear about it.

Thank you

 

[Laurie Lynch]

Hi Tammy!

We have a weekly conference, but just a monthly Grand Rounds, usually an invited speaker our chair invites from other programs. We also have our chief residents (total of 3) present on a topic of their choosing during the more difficult travel months of December, January and February. Most of our faculty are employed by our hospital partners, so it can be challenging for their schedules to get away. We start our conferences at 6:15 am so they can attend before they are required in the OR. The second hour of guest Grand Rounds can be case presentations, a second lecture, or a related bioskills lab with our invited speaker. After Chiefs’ Grand Rounds, the second hour is often a Business of Medicine topic.

It has been challenging to engage our faculty again in person following the months of virtual presentations. We offer Grand Rounds as an in-person event only. Our faculty have a certain percentage of attendance for Grand Rounds required, which is reviewed in their annual meeting with our department chair. Faculty receive CME credit. Some topics being presented also count toward their faculty development requirement and we advertise that opportunity.

We’ve worked on our advance communication of the Grand Rounds schedule so faculty can plan ahead. We send a save-the-date email one month in advance with the speaker name, short biography, and the title of the presentation. A week or two prior, we send a full agenda with the second hour content. This year we introduced a department app. The full schedule of Grand Rounds is listed there with dates, speaker names and photos, also save-the-date and agenda flyers attached as they become available.

We are always looking for improvements, so I am also interested to hear best practices from others!

Laurie

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