Identifying Key Gaps: A Qualitative Exploration of Physicians-in-Training Caring for Adults With Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities.
Jessica Solomon Sanders, Ashley C Dafoe, Elizabeth Paschal and 4 others
Residents across five specialties reported feeling unprepared to care for adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities, with communication barriers being the biggest source of anxiety.
They wanted hands-on exposure and a specialist to call, not another lecture.
Key findings
1Communication challenges were the primary barrier to resident confidence. Residents worried they were missing cues about pain, stress, or discomfort, and this made them question whether they could provide quality care at all.
2Thirteen of the 20 residents had no formal education about IDD during residency, and only two had a clinical rotation dedicated to IDD. Eleven described their experience interacting with people with IDD as 'a little.'
3Residents wanted to observe experienced physicians treating IDD patients and to have a specialist they could phone for a quick consult, rather than receiving didactic modules or lectures.
Still to come
How it was doneWhat they found
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What it does not show
Single site (University of Colorado, Colorado, USA), so findings reflect one institution's training culture and patient mix. Limited racial and ethnic diversity: 17 of 20 participants were white and 19 of 20 were non-Hispanic. Convenience sampling with self-selection means the residents who chose to participate may be those with stronger opinions or more experience, skewing the themes. The study captures residents' self-reported perceptions and comfort levels; no patient outcomes, no direct observation of clinical encounters, and no measure of actual care quality were collected. All participants were PGY3 or above, so the experience of earlier-year residents is not represented.
Declared interests
The authors declare no conflicts of interest. No external funding source is named in the text provided.
The easy way to misread this
Do not read this as evidence that residents are providing poor care to adults with IDD. The study captures what residents felt and said about their own preparation and comfort; no patient outcomes, no observed clinical encounters, and no measure of actual care quality were collected. The 'I am not the doctor for you' quote that appears in the paper comes from a different study (Lagu et al. 2022), not from these 20 residents.
Summarised by AI from the full paper, without a clinician reviewing it. Check it against the source before it changes what you do. Read it on PubMed →