The chief medical residency in the 1980s

Abstract

A survey of university chief medical residents [l] indicated a moderate degree of dissatisfaction with the position and suggested that it was obsolescent. Several ways to change the position were proposed. Two surveys 10 years later did not confirm the obsolescence of chief residencies but rather confirmed the importance of the chief medical resident and stressed the need for periodic assessment of the chief residency position in order to maximize the impact of the chief medical resident on patient care and the educational aspects of the individual program [2,3]. We have examined some of the criticisms of the chief medical residency position, placed them in light of changes in internal medicine that have occurred during the last decade, and propose a number of specific improvements based on our experience at the major academic facility of Northwestern University Medical School.