Background: Initiatives such as Resident-as-Teacher (RAT), Bite-Sized Teaching (BST), and gamification can improve resident teaching skills and encourage learner-centered education. However, their implementation is often limited by time constraints and lack of faculty expertise.
Purpose: We developed and implemented the TEACH Tournament (Targeted Educational Approach to Clinical Highlights), a gamified, TED-style teaching competition to promote resident engagement in education and evaluate teaching skills with an adaptable and replicable model.
Description: Inspired by the MED-TED competition at Society of Hospital Medicine Converge 2024, this initiative combined brief, high-impact teaching with structured assessment. The tournament served as a capstone project for six PGY-3 residents in the Medical Education Pathway. Participants gave an 8-minute TED-style presentation on topics of their choice, followed by a 2-minute Q&A during protected academic time attended by residents and faculty. Faculty scored each presenter with a five-domain faculty rubric developed by medical education faculty. Residents completed a single-item evaluation on the overall value of each presentation. Scores were collected via Qualtrics and weighted 70% faculty and 30% resident. The highest-scoring presenter was announced at the end and awarded a $100 gift card.
Conclusions: The inaugural TEACH Tournament drew approximately 40 attendees, a 25–50% increase compared to typical Academic Half Day sessions. Resident-led presentations covered unique clinical topics (e.g., enteral feeding and evaluating pleural effusions) and used diverse instructional formats including clinical vignettes, props, and checklists. Post-event survey data from 33 resident respondents showed 82% rated the format “extremely effective” and 18% “effective” for delivering high-yield clinical pearls. Nearly half (48%) favored expanding the tournament to all residents on a quarterly basis, and 42% preferred it to occur twice per year. Faculty feedback highlighted the event’s energy and the quality of teaching. Residents described the tournament as the “most exciting” educational session of the year, preferring it over traditional faculty-led teaching. The TEACH Tournament highlighted several important lessons. Preparation of electronic surveys and a pre-coded Excel sheet was essential to an efficient scoring process. Additionally, this project reflects the value of resident-selected topics, which preferentially addressed topics and competencies in hospital medicine. The low-cost, adaptable format requires minimal preparation, supports implementation across different sites and inpatient rotations, and expands opportunities for hospitalist engagement in education as faculty. Limitations included implementation in a single site, lack of rubric validation, potential evaluator bias, and time constraints; future events may benefit from fewer presenters and more structured evaluation. The TEACH Tournament offers a sustainable model for resident-led, gamified teaching competitions that encourages educational engagement and development of teaching skills. For the 2025–2026 academic year, the tournament will be expanded into a multi-round, all-resident competition with a year-end finale.