All Entries Tagged With: "resident"
Why teaching bedside skills to hospitalists is in decline
Only 17% of hospitalist teaching time is spent at the patient’s bedside, according to a new study “Quantification of Bedside Teaching by an Academic Hospitalist Group,” published in the May/June 2009 issue of the Journal of Hospital Medicine.
Conducted at the Brigham and Women’s Hospitalist Service in Boston, the study asked residents and interns how much time hospitalist attending physicians spend at the bedside and how much they teach physical examination skills. The academic hospital found that hospitalists spend an average of 17 minutes inside patient rooms during rounds, which translates to only 17% of their teaching time spent at the bedside.
Hospitalists shouldn’t be “super residents”
Anjala V. Tess, MD speaks about resisting the urge to be "super residents." (HospitalistLeadership photo / Karen M. Cheung)
I attended the Society of Hospital Medicine Boston chapter meeting last week, entitled “Hospital Medicine: Implications for Future of Healthcare,” held at the Harvard Medical School on March 5.
I was interested to hear about the role that hospitalists should play in teaching hospitals. One of the key points of the night was how supervising hospitalists should consider holding back when it comes to resident work.
It’s a delicate balance between teaching residents, but also breeding resident autonomy.
“Autonomy is hugely important,” says Robert M. Wachter, MD, professor and associate chairman of the University of California, San Francisco, Department of Medicine. “The feeling of ‘I’m-running-the-team’ is really important [for residents],” he said.
Wachter said he sometimes resists conducting morning rounds with the residents to allow them to really lead.
Readmissions rate: Hospitalist service vs. resident service
Resident-staffed services have a higher unscheduled readmission rate compared to hospitalist services, according to researchers from the University of Florida College of Medicine in Jacksonville.
Researchers complied data from nearly 6,000 admissions in 2006-2007 and found that unscheduled readmission within 30 days of hospital admission were significantly higher in the teaching service (14% readmission rate) compared to the hospitalist service (10% readmission rate). [more]
Tip: Help residents transition to hospitalist attending
To fend off the ongoing physician shortage, academic medical centers are recruiting from their own residency programs. In fact, half of new hospitalists are recruited from residency or fellowship programs, according to the 2007-2008 Society of Hospital Medicine Biannual Survey.
One tip to help ease the transition for residents as they make their way to the new job position of hospitalist attending is to “Promote hospital-based medicine as a career,” said Peter Watson, MD, chief of the division of hospitalist medicine at Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit, in an interview with HCPro, Inc. Watson also served for five years as the associate director of the internal medicine residency program at Henry Ford Hospital. [more]
