A Multidisciplinary ICU Clerkship Curriculum Incorporating Simulation and Competency-Based Education: Design, Implementation, and Early Outcomes

Abstract

Introduction Critical care competencies are increasingly relevant across specialties, yet structured exposure in undergraduate medical education (UME) remains variable. We describe the design, implementation, and early outcomes of a four-week, modular ICU clerkship. Methods We implemented a multidisciplinary ICU clerkship integrating clinical immersion, protected weekly didactics, asynchronous learning, high-fidelity simulation, health equity rounds, and palliative care debriefing. Objectives were aligned with Delphi-derived undergraduate critical care competencies and AAMC Entrustable Professional Activities. We compared student clerkship evaluation ratings (learner perceptions on a 5-point Likert scale) before and after a comprehensive curriculum redesign (July 2022–June 2024 vs July 2024–June 2025) using Welch two-sample t-tests. Results Approximately 95 students per year completed the clerkship. Following redesign, the largest improvements were observed in structural and organizational domains: orientation (+0.94), syllabus (+0.95), didactics (+0.85), and organization (+0.76) (all p < 0.001). Clinical skills (+0.36, p=0.01) and knowledge (+0.31, p=0.01) increased modestly and remained consistently high. Simulation ratings remained high (4.44 to 4.65, p=0.04). Overall clerkship rating improved from 4.00 to 4.51 (p=0.002). Discussion A modular ICU clerkship is feasible and adaptable across settings. Improvements were most pronounced in structural domains, while core clinical learning domains remained stable, suggesting that targeted curricular redesign can enhance learner experience while maintaining high perceived educational value.