Educational climate of a pathology residency program at a tertiary care hospital

RESEARCH ARTICLE Educational climate of a pathology residency program at a tertiary care hospital Zafar AliID1, Hashaam Bin Ghafoor2, Muhammad Nasir Ayub Khan3, Muslim Atiq4, Saira AkhlaqID5* 1 Division of Pathology, Department of Histopathology, Shifa International Hospital, Islamabad, Pakistan, 2 Department of Anaesthesia, Al-Khor Hospital, Hammad Medical Corporation, Doha, Qatar, 3 Department of Anaesthesia, Shifa International Hospital, Islamabad, Pakistan, 4 Department of Gastroenterology, Shifa International Hospital, Islamabad, Pakistan, 5 Master’s in Health Professions Education, Shifa School of Health Professions Education, Shifa Tameer-e-Millat University, Islamabad, Pakistan * saira.sshpe@stmu.edu.pk Abstract Evaluating educational climate (EC) is imperative for ensuring postgraduate trainees’ com- petencies and quality in residency training programs. This study assessed the EC experi- ences of pathology postgraduate residents (PGRs) during their postgraduate training in pathology residency programs—a cross-sectional study design assigned EC scores in the pathology residency program at a prestigious institution in Islamabad, which were measured using the Dutch Residency Educational Climate Test (D-RECT) questionnaire. Scores from the D-RECT were employed to conduct descriptive statistics and comparison of means across groups to evaluate EC scores by years of training and compared to assess where the differences were located. Among FCPS-II pathology residents, most of whom were females (94.4%), the mean age was 28.11±2.91 years. A mean positive score was observed

among all pathology residents (M�3.6) for all D-RECT subscales except for the feedback subscale: the average score for feedback was below the average mean score of 3.6 (M = 3.19). A significant difference p = 0.016 was observed in EC scores across different groups through the Analysis of Variances (ANOVA) test. The most significant difference was between less than two and greater than two groups p = 0.027, followed by the difference between equal to two groups and greater than two groups p = 0.052. Overall, positive scores for EC in the pathology residency program were observed. Thus, targeted interventions are needed to increase feedback scores and address observed differences in EC scores by years of training. Introduction Educational Climate (EC) is the pivot around which the other four focal areas of medical edu- cation (i.e., Curriculum, Environment, Quality, and Change) are considered for discussion [1]. Educational Environment (EE) may be described as an environment that is influenced by the physical environment (i.e., safety, comfort, food), emotional environment (i.e., feedback qual- ity and security), and educational environment (i.e., participation, relevance, and education PLOS ONE PLOS ONE | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0303534 May 23, 2024 1 / 10 a1111111111 a1111111111 a1111111111 a1111111111 a1111111111 OPEN ACCESS Citation: Ali Z, Ghafoor HB, Ayub Khan MN, Atiq M, Akhlaq S (2024) Educational climate of a pathology residency program at a tertiary care hospital. PLoS ONE 19(5): e0303534. https://doi.org/10.1371/ journal.pone.0303534

Editor: Ritesh G. Menezes, Imam Abdulrahman Bin Faisal University, SAUDI ARABIA Received: August 21, 2023 Accepted: April 26, 2024 Published: May 23, 2024 Peer Review History: PLOS recognizes the benefits of transparency in the peer review process; therefore, we enable the publication of all of the content of peer review and author responses alongside final, published articles. The editorial history of this article is available here: https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0303534 Copyright: © 2024 Ali et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. Data Availability Statement: Data has been attached as a Supporting Information file. Funding: The author(s) received no specific funding for this work.