Teaching Inpatient Medicine

Abstract

Each year, roughly 18,000 medical students graduate from 170 plus medical schools in the United States. Nearly all of these graduates will continue their medical education at one of the more than 1,000 teaching hospitals across the country. Because of the reduction in the resident work week and the more recent intern shift cap, medical education on the wards must be high yield. This educational responsibility falls on the shoulders of attending physicians, few of whom have had formal education in teaching. This book utilized an in-depth exploratory, qualitative approach to uncover how a group of attendings, identified as experts in the field of medical teaching, construct learning environments that promote team-based learning while delivering high-quality patient-centered care. We observed attendings with their teams on rounds and conducted interviews and focus groups with the attendings and current and former learners in order to obtain multiple perspectives on what makes an attending a great teacher and clinician. Using real examples derived from the inpatient teaching environment, this book will provide readers with strategies they can modify and incorporate into their own teaching repertoire, including how to utilize the expertise of other allied health professionals and involve the patient in the teaching process.