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Table 4 Themes identified from the interviews and related quotes

From: A novel multimodal needs assessment to inform the longitudinal education program for an international interprofessional critical care team

Eager to learn

“Everything attracted me. I would like to learn everything if time allows”. (II)

“It was hard to pick from the cards. They were all important.” (III)

Organ support and disease management

“The most severe shock often necessitates more than two vasopressors. We are curious about the choice of medication, maximal dose, drug interaction, and how to simplify or de-escalate.” (VII)

“I hope to learn about advanced life-support techniques, like ECMO*.” (II)

“How do you assess one’s ability to cough? Many patients cannot manage their secretions after extubation, despite having rehabilitation.” (V)

“For patients with multi-organ failure, we come across many nutritious problems like diarrhea, ileus, and poor absorption of enteral feeding. How do we assist the recovery of the digestive tract?” (VIII)

*ECMO: extracorporeal membrane oxygenation

Quality improvement

“Our goal is to create standardized, protocolized workflow. We have access to the guidelines, but how to implement guidelines into daily practice? How to engage all colleagues to adhere to best practices instead of being guided by personal experience alone?” (VII)

“The patients will benefit from standardized care.” (IV)

“In many rural hospitals from where our patients are transferred, the choice and duration of antibiotics are not ideal. Drug-resistant bacteria are common.” (I)

Interprofessional skills

“Standardized presentations on rounds are not mandatory as we are not a teaching hospital. We do not conduct typical multidisciplinary rounds. I feel confused when the consult team’s opinions are different from ours.” (III)

“While co-managing patients with operative teams, occasional disagreement on medical assessment, such as the necessity of an intervention, or the patient’s readiness for extubation, leaves us in a hard situation.” (I)

Patient-centered communication

“My least interested topic was communicating with family. The patient-doctor relationship may be different in the US. I guess the way they communicate may be quite different, too.” (VII)

“I also ranked the patient communication as a less important one because considering the cultural difference, it must be hard to adopt directly what the American doctors do. I care relatively more about the diagnostic and therapeutics.” (I)

“Our patient engagement is limited. Some patients have little educational background. We are often asked (by family) to hide the cancer diagnosis from the patient. There are many barriers.” (VI)

Procedure/resuscitation skills

“I do all procedures comfortably except tracheostomy of high complexity. (VI)

“We’re starting a critical care residency. The younger doctors need more training. We would like to learn about educational methods and training standards for procedures.(I)