Abstract 4 - Work in Progress

Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation (PM&R) is an underutilized area of medicine in part due to lack of awareness of PM&R amongst medical students and practicing physicians. Collaboration with PM&R improves patient care and experience as evidenced in the COVID-19 pandemic where PM&R specialists were able to share their expertise to offer an alternative to emergency department visits for pain management. Thus, understanding knowledge gaps and barriers to referral to PM&R can lead to improved care for a wide variety of patients. This study is two-fold and aims to assess various aspects of PM&R awareness in postgraduate medical learners as well as primary care professionals at McMaster University and in the Hamilton area, respectively.

Two unique cross-sectional online surveys were developed to assess PM&R awareness and referral patterns in primary care professionals and postgraduate medical learners. In addition, postgraduate medical learners will also be surveyed on their interest in learning more about the specialty. Participation is voluntary and responses will be collected anonymously. The survey will be accessible to 650 primary care professionals and to 1169 postgraduate learners on regional and postgraduate medical education distribution lists respectively. The goal is to attain a response rate of 30% or more. Descriptive univariate and thematic analysis of the data will be conducted after survey completion.

The results from this study will act as a foundation to guide future research, quality improvement interventions and educational efforts to overcome referral barriers to the specialty and to ultimately improve access to rehabilitative care for patients in local and regional settings.