Rachel Hislop-Hook
Supervisor: Shelley Ross
Project: Educating family doctors caring for children with asthma
"Support from WCHRI has allowed me to spend my summer learning about a medical problem that is incredibly relevant for my future career as a family doctor."
Development of education modules for family physicians to increase confidence and competence in caring for children with asthma
Asthma is the most common chronic illness among Canadian children. It affects 850,000, or 13 per cent, of children in Canada and is becoming more common every year. Asthma is the leading reason for missing school or being hospitalized for kids. When asthma is not controlled, it can cause serious lifelong health problems and can also cause problems with sleep that can affect the developing brain.
Children with asthma are most often cared for by family doctors. However, when family doctors lack knowledge in treating children with asthma, they send these children to pediatric lung specialists, who often have waiting lists that are months long because of COVID-19. When children's asthma is not cared for well, these children show up to the hospital. Instead, family doctors could be providing timely care to these patients if they have the skills and knowledge.
Family doctors can do a good job caring for children with asthma, but they need more education. Our goal is to create easy-to-use education modules to help family doctors care for children with asthma. There are two parts to our study. We will work with a pediatric asthma specialist for the first part to make the education modules. The modules will be based on current care guidelines. We will choose the topics based on the questions that family doctors ask most often when they call the asthma specialist. We will test the modules with a small group of family doctors and residents (doctors in training) for the second part.
We will collect data from the doctors about how useful the educational modules are, and ask about any changes that are needed. When the modules are finished, family doctors will be able to use them in their own time to learn about asthma diagnosis, care, and control. This will help these doctors to take the best possible care of children with asthma. This project will help to improve the health of children with asthma.
Rachel Hislop-Hook was supervised by Shelley Ross and her summer studentship was funded by the Stollery Children’s Hospital Foundation. She is enrolled in the Doctor of Medicine program.
