doi:10.1016/j.jemermed.2009.10.025 Education EMERGENCY MEDICINE INTEREST GROUP CURRICULUM: FACULTY AND PRECLINICAL STUDENT OPINIONS DIFFER IN A FORMAL NEEDS ASSESSMENT Carol Lee, MD,* Sebastian Uijtdehaage, PHD,† and Wendy C. Coates, MD*†‡ *Department of Emergency Medicine, Harbor-UCLA Medical Center, Torrance, California, †Center for Educational Development and Research, David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, Los Angeles, California, and ‡Los Angeles Biomedical Institute at Harbor-UCLA, Torrance, California Reprint Address: Wendy C. Coates, MD, Department of Emergency Medicine, Box 21, Harbor-UCLA Medical Center, 1000 West Carson St. Torrance, CA 90509-2910 e Abstract—Background: Medical students and Emer- gency medicine (EM) faculty may have differing opinions on the ideal curriculum during the preclinical years. Ob- jectives: To assess the perceived needs of preclinical medi- cal students exploring EM and compare them with those of EM faculty regarding appropriate educational interven- tions. Methods: A survey instrument listing 15 workshops related to EM was administered to preclinical medical stu- dents in our Emergency Medicine Interest Group (EMIG), and to EM faculty. Respondents graded the perceived util- ity of each workshop offered at our medical school and those identified via a web search for EMIG. No recommen- dations for EMIG curriculum were identified through PubMed. Fisher’s exact tests were computed using SPSS (SPSS Inc., Chicago, IL) with   0.05. Results: There were 48 medical students and 15 faculty members who completed the survey. Students strongly desired workshops in sutur- ing (48/48; 100%), splinting (47/48; 97.9%), and basic elec- trocardiogram (ECG) interpretation (47/48; 97.9%). Least desired topics were history of EM (16/48; 33.3%), getting involved in EM organizations (20/48; 41.7%), and wellness (21/48; 43.8%). Women chose the domestic violence work- shop more than men (p  0.036). Faculty strongly sup- ported workshops in conducting focused history and phys- ical examination (14/15; 93.3%), the specialty of EM (14/15; 93.3%), and basic ECG interpretation (12/15; 80.0%). The lowest rated faculty preferences were ultrasound (5/15; 33.3%), history of EM (7/15; 46.7%), and emergency radi- ology (7/15; 46.7%). Conclusions: Preclinical students and faculty opinions of important educational workshops dif- fered. Faculty favored the approach to the undifferentiated patient and an introduction to the specialty, whereas stu- dents preferred hands-on workshops. Both groups agreed that basic ECG interpretation was useful. These data may be useful for designing an educational program that is interesting to preclinical students while still meeting the needs as perceived by medical student educators. © 2011 Elsevier Inc. e Keywords—preclinical medical student; undergraduate medical education; mentoring; curriculum development; emergency medicine; Emergency Medicine Interest Group (EMIG) INTRODUCTION Students embark on their medical school experience ea- gerly anticipating clinical aspects of medicine. However, when they discover that much of their first 2 years is spent in the classroom and laboratory learning the basic Presented at the Society for Academic Emergency Medicine Western Regional Forum (March, 2008) and the California American College of Emergency Physicians Scientific Assem- bly (June, 2009). Received: 2 July 2009; FINAL SUBMISSION RECEIVED: 11 September 2009; ACCEPTED: 17 October 2009 The Journal of Emergency Medicine, Vol. 40, No. 2, pp. 218 –224, 2011 Copyright © 2011 Elsevier Inc. Printed in the USA. All rights reserved 0736-4679/$–see front matter 218