The Monday Morning DripPediatric med ed for the busy educator
Issue 1 · Week of Sept 28, 2026

"Ready for what?"

Pediatric PDs feel a heavy moral duty to call graduates practice-ready but define readiness differently, just as the ABP moves to EPA-based attestations in 2028. On the way in, pediatrics-specific signals (the NBME shelf, clerkship honors, GHHS) modestly predict early Milestones. Once residents arrive, the hidden struggles are about adapting to the workplace, and Academic Pediatrics shows how help-seeking and autonomy develop along the way.

In this issuePractice readinessWhat predicts intern performanceWhat PDs wish they knew at handover
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Issue 4 · AudioWho (and what) is in the room with our learners?Week of Oct 12, 2026Issue 3 · AudioSafe to struggle, safe to say so.Week of Oct 5, 2026Issue 2 · Audio"Ready" has to be proven now.Week of Sept 28, 2026
Top reads
1
Peds GMEAssessment

"Readiness for what?" How pediatric PDs decide a graduate is practice-ready

  • In a grounded theory study, 15 pediatric PDs described an "immense moral responsibility" for the practice-readiness call.
  • Definitions split three ways: ready as a general pediatrician regardless of career plans, ready for the specific setting the resident is headed to, or ready for fellowship.
Why it matters: the ABP moves to EPA-based readiness attestations in 2028. Programs and CCCs need a shared answer to "ready for what?" before then.
"Program Directors' Varied Conceptions of Practice Readiness." Pediatrics. Online Sept 2, 2026. PMID 42680169. doi:10.1542/peds.2026-077198
Full text ›
2
Peds GMESelection

Screening season: what actually predicts pediatric intern performance?

  • ERAS metrics (518 residents, 10 programs): GHHS (B=0.15, P=.009) and Step 2 CK (B=0.06, P=.007) were associated with overall Milestone performance.
  • Medical school metrics (414 graduates, 5 sites; Milestones for 228): the NBME Pediatrics shelf was the only factor tied to all 6 competencies, and peds clerkship honors predicted Professionalism and Patient Care.
Synthesis: effects are small, and Milestone data were missing for about 45% of graduates in the second study. Use these as nudges in holistic review, not cutoffs.
J Grad Med Educ. Aug 2026. doi:10.4300/jgme-d-25-00854.1 and doi:10.4300/jgme-d-25-01139.1
ERAS metrics ›Med school metrics ›
3
GMETransitions

The "unknowable" intern: what PDs wish they'd known at handover

  • 19 PDs across FM, IM, OB, peds, and surgery shared 38 stories of residents who struggled. The surprises were usually workplace adaptation, not knowledge.
  • Three kinds of information gaps: known but ambiguous, knowable but absent, and currently unknowable until the resident arrives.
Try this: add adaptation signals (asking for help, workflow, team integration) to your early-intern check-ins.
Bowen JL, Cooper DM, Larson RW, et al. Acad Med. 2026;101(10):1289-96. doi:10.1093/acamed/wvag120
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From Academic Pediatrics
Peds GME
"Do I Need Help?" Interns on night float. In 19 stories from 12 interns, help-seeking fell into three patterns: need help now, do I need help?, and should wait. Acuity and uncertainty sped up calls; not wanting to bother the supervisor slowed them. Links Torwekar B, et al. Full text ›
Peds GME
Autonomy grows up. 14 PHM fellows followed for 3 years into attending practice moved from "complete independence" to a collaborative model of autonomy. Jurgens V, et al. Full text ›
CME
POCUS for community pediatricians. A year after a 2-day course plus 4 supervised shifts, 44% of 52 respondents used POCUS weekly. Device access drove ongoing use. Katz-Dana H, et al. Full text ›
Quick hits
Supervision
SAFE-DC: a rounds format (Summary, Active issues, Follow-up, Exit, Drugs/devices, Counseling) for supervising discharge plans. Katz S, et al. Acad Med 2026;101(10):1222. Full text ›
AIUME
GPT-4o tutors: struggling first-year students (87 users vs 206 non-users) closed an exam gap, and failures among users fell from 24.1% to 4.4%. Self-selected users. Sami A, et al. Acad Med 2026;101(10):1265. Full text ›
GME
GME Program Scorecard: a 17-metric dashboard built from existing data took 2,920 analyst hours and $1,600 in licenses; 61% of potential users accessed it. JGME Aug 2026. Full text ›
AI
LLMs to summarize resident assessment comments. JGME Aug 2026. Title only; the abstract request was rate-limited. PubMed ›
Sources & caveats: Summaries come from abstracts I read (except the one marked title only): NCBI for JGME and Pediatrics, ScienceDirect for Acad Peds, and OUP for Acad Med. Author lists weren't available for the JGME and Pediatrics items. Full text may need an institutional login. Please verify before citing.
📚 Keep reading: more from the archive
See all 4 issues →
Issue 4 · AudioWho (and what) is in the room with our learners?Week of Oct 12, 2026Issue 3 · AudioSafe to struggle, safe to say so.Week of Oct 5, 2026Issue 2 · Audio"Ready" has to be proven now.Week of Sept 28, 2026
The Monday Morning Drip · AI-generated by Claude, not fully reviewed · see you next Monday ☕