Will Changes in the Education of Medical Residents be Good?

I’m a dinosaur.  A dyed in the wool old fart.  When I was a resident, the grueling hours,  shitty food, and total sleep deprivation made boot camp seem like a vacation at the Four Seasons.

But it made us good doctors.  Why?  Because patients don’t always get sick between the hours of 9 and 5. You had to be ready to act, act fast, and act when you didn’t feel like acting.

Yes there were tragedies like the Libby Zion case.  I don’t know all the particulars.  I’m sure residency training the way it was  played a role but there were other errors in the system as well I imagine.

Here’s an interesting article.  I’m not sure what it has to do with arthritis treatment or stem cells or other things I do… but it struck a chord…

Redesigning Medical Residencies May Shorten Patients’ Stays, Cut Costs For Hospital.

MedPage Today (4/7, Gever) reported that “redesigning medical residencies and internships to emphasize education was not only a hit with trainees, but also shortened patients’ hospital stays and cut costs for the hospital,” according to a study published in the New England Journal of Medicine. Researchers found that “a program launched at Boston’s Brigham and Women’s Hospital doubled the amount of time trainees spent in learning activities and significantly increased their satisfaction with their education, compared with residents and interns in conventional programs.” The investigators reported that “interns’ average patient census per shift in the new program was 3.5, compared with 6.6 for interns following the traditional model…but patients’ mean length of stay was reduced by 0.51 days.” Hospitals were able to save money because of the shortened stays.

Author’s note: I’m not sure what they mean by “education”. You don’t learn how to take care of sick patients by just reading books… just like you don’t learn how to ride a bike or sail a boat by reading books.  You gotta do it.

I’m sure it was a hit with the trainees like was said in the article.  I’m just not sure I want someone taking care of me who’s just read about my condition in a journal and can cite umpteen references.

It’s like the consultant on sex who knows 950 positions but can’t get a date for Saturday night.