The critical incident as a tool to recertify the pediatric specialty.

Abstract

The practice of the medical profession in our specialty requires an adequate skills profile which includes knowledge, skills, attitudes, and values. The critical Incident (CI) is a structured narrative in which the professional describes any event that occurred during the daily medical activity, which triggers doubts or perplexity, motivating actions and thoughtful thinking that improve the professional development. Objectives: to describe rresults of the IC performed in the recertification process, the factors associated with its approval, and to evaluate whether the CI is an appropriate tool to be included as part of the recertification process. Methodology: descriptive analytical cross-sectional study. Results: eleven CIs (73%) were approved; the most frequent reason for choosing CI was the need to improve score levels for achieving recertification (73%); Age: median 52 years (IQR 49 to 58); 100% were female; 48% were trained in specialized hospitals and the time of recertification was 120 months (IQR 96 to 122). Knowledge Domain: 14% developed an adequate clinical scenario and 13% the research question, and 20% made an adequate summary. In Practice Domain:35% implemented appropriate profesional strategies; 13% of the other effectors developed appropriate strategies and only 7% carried out complete bibliographic searches in their action plan. Reflective Learning Domain: the results inherent to the patient (33%) and the professional (20%), carried out an adequate comprehensive approach; on the final reflections 13% and 15% developed adequately strengths and weaknesses, respectively in relation to the clinical case. Conclusions: Professionals obtaining approved ICs were the ones who achieved a comprehensive approach of the patient and his problem, this condition being related to having achieved the adequate development of reflective learning (knowing to be-clinical reasoning). Based on these results, we could assume that the IC could be an appropriate tool to include in the recertification process. No statistical association was found between the investigated variables and the approval of the CI.