Hospitalist involvement in internal medicine residencies

Dual Autonomies, Divergent Approaches: How Stratification in Medical Education Shapes Approaches to Patient Care

The United States relies on international and osteopathic medical graduates ("non-USMDs") to fill one third of residency positions because of a shortage of American MD graduates ("USMDs"). Non-USMDs are often informally excluded from top residency positions, while USMDs tend to fill the most prestigious residencies. Little is known, however, about whether the training in these different settings is comparable or how it impacts patients. Drawing on 23 months of ethnographic fieldwork and 123 interviews, I compare training at two internal medicine programs: a community hospital staffing 90% non-USMDs and a university hospital staffing 99% USMDs. The community program's structure lent itself to a hands-off approach resulting in "inconsistent autonomy." In contrast, the university hospital supervised its residents much more regularly, resulting in "supported autonomy." I conclude that medicine may be stratified in unexpected ways between USMDs and non-USMDs and that stratification may matter for patients.

Association of Hospitalist Years of Experience With Mortality in the Hospitalized Medicare Population

IMPORTANCE

Substantial numbers of hospitalists are fresh graduates of residency training programs. Current data about the effect of hospitalist years of experience on patient outcomes are lacking.

OBJECTIVE

To describe the association of hospitalist years of experience with 30-day mortality and hospital mortality of their patients.

DESIGN, SETTING, AND PARTICIPANTS

We used a 5% sample of national Medicare data of patient and hospital characteristics to build a multilevel logistic regression model to predict mortality as a function of years of experience of the hospitalists. We created 2 cohorts. The first was a cross-sectional cohort of 21 612 hospitalists working between July 1, 2013, and June 30, 2014, with a 5-year look-back period to assess their years of prior experience as a hospitalist, and the second was a longitudinal cohort of 3860 hospitalists in their first year of practice between July 1, 2008, and June 30, 2011, who continued practicing hospital medicine for at least 4 years.

MAIN OUTCOMES AND MEASURES

Thirty-day postadmission mortality adjusted for patient and hospital characteristics in a 3-level logistic regression model. Hospital mortality was a secondary outcome.

RESULTS

Among 21 612 hospitalists caring for Medicare inpatients from July 1, 2013, to June 30, 2014, 5445 (25%) had 1 year of experience or less, while 11 596 (54%) had 4 years of experience or more. We then identified 3860 physicians in their first year as hospitalists who continued to practice as hospitalists for 4 years. There was a significant association between hospitalist experience and mortality. Observed 30-day mortality was 10.50% for patients of first-year hospitalists vs 9.97% for patients of hospitalists in their second year. The mortality odds for patients of second-year hospitalists were 0.90 (95% CI, 0.84-0.96) compared with patients of first-year hospitalists. Observed hospital mortality was 3.33% for patients cared for by first-year hospitalists vs 2.96% for second-year hospitalists. (odds ratio, 0.84; 95% CI, 0.75-0.95). For both 30-day and hospital mortality, there was little change in odds of mortality between the second year and subsequent years of experience.

CONCLUSIONS AND RELEVANCE

Patients cared for by hospitalists in their first year of practice experience higher mortality. Early-career hospitalists may require additional support to ensure optimal outcomes for their patients.

Whither the Pulmonary Ward Attending? Preserving Subspecialty Exposure in United States Internal Medicine Residency Training

Twenty years ago, the term "hospitalist" was coined at the University of California-San Francisco (San Francisco, CA), heralding a new specialty focused on the care of inpatients. There are now more than 50,000 hospitalists practicing in the United States. At many academic medical centers, hospitalists are largely replacing subspecialists as attendings on the inpatient medicine wards. At University of California-San Francisco, this has been accompanied by declining percentages of residency graduates who enter subspecialty training in internal medicine. The decline in subspecialty medicine interest can be attributed to many factors, including differences in compensation, decreased subspecialist exposure, and a changing research funding landscape. Although there has not been systematic documentation of this trend in pulmonary and critical care medicine, we have noted previously pulmonary and critical care-bound trainees switching to hospital medicine instead. With our broad, multiorgan system perspective, pulmonary and critical care faculty should embrace teaching general medicine. Residency programs have instituted creative solutions to encourage more internal medicine residents to pursue careers in subspecialty medicine. Some solutions include creating rotations that promote more contact with subspecialists and physician-scientists, creating clinician-educator tracks within fellowship programs, and appointing subspecialists to internal medicine residency leadership positions. We need more rigorous research to track the trends and implications of the generalist-specialist balance of inpatient ward teams on resident career choices, and learn what interventions affect those choices.

Faculty development for hospitalists: structured peer observation of teaching

BACKGROUND

Hospitalists provide much of the clinical teaching in internal medicine, yet formative feedback to improve their teaching is rare.

METHODS

We developed a peer observation, assessment, and feedback program to improve attending hospitalist teaching. Participants were trained to identify 10 optimal teaching behaviors using a structured observation tool that was developed from the validated Stanford Faculty Development Program clinical teaching framework. Participants joined year-long feedback dyads and engaged in peer observation and feedback on teaching. Pre- and post-program surveys assessed confidence in teaching, performance of teaching behaviors, confidence in giving and receiving feedback, attitudes toward peer observation, and overall satisfaction with the program.

RESULTS

Twenty-two attending hospitalists participated, averaging 2.2 years (± 2.1 years standard deviation [SD]) experience; 15 (68%) completed pre- and post-program surveys. Confidence in giving feedback, receiving feedback, and teaching efficacy increased (1 = strongly disagree, 5 = strongly agree, mean ± SD): "I can accurately assess my colleagues' teaching skills," (pre = 3.2 ± 0.9 vs post = 4.1 ± 0.6, P < 0.01), "I can give accurate feedback to my colleagues" (pre = 3.4 ± 0.6 vs post = 4.2 ± 0.6, P < 0.01), and "I am confident in my ability to teach students and residents" (pre = 3.2 ± 0.9 vs post = 3.7 ± 0.8, P = 0.026).

CONCLUSIONS

Peer observation and feedback of teaching increases hospitalist confidence in several domains that are essential for optimizing teaching. Further studies are needed to examine if educational outcomes are improved by this program.

Effects of increased overnight supervision on resident education, decision-making, and autonomy

BACKGROUND

New supervisory regulations highlight the challenge of balancing housestaff supervision and autonomy. To better understand the impact of increased supervision on residency training, we investigated housestaff perceptions of education, autonomy, and clinical decision-making before and after implementation of an in-hospital, overnight attending physician (nocturnist).

METHODS

We established a nocturnist program in July 2010 at our academic, tertiary care medical center. We administered pre-surveys and post-surveys of internal medicine residents on night float rotation during the 2010-2011 academic year. We surveyed residents before and after experiencing the nocturnist program.

RESULTS

Housestaff reported an increase in the clinical value of the night float rotation (3.95 vs 4.27, P = 0.01) and the adequacy of overnight supervision (3.65 vs 4.30, P < 0.0001) without a change in decision-making autonomy (4.35 vs 4.45, P = 0.44). Trainees agreed that nocturnist supervision positively impacted patient outcomes (3.79 vs 4.30, P = 0.002). Housestaff contacted attendings more frequently for transfers from outside facilities (2.00 vs 3.20, P = 0.006), during adverse events (2.51 vs 3.25, P = 0.04), prior to ordering invasive diagnostics (1.75 vs 2.76, P = 0.004), and prior to vasopressor use (1.52 vs 2.40, P = 0.004). Residents' fear of revealing knowledge gaps and desire to make decisions independently did not change.

CONCLUSIONS

Increased overnight supervision enhanced the clinical value of the night float rotation, increased rates of attending contact during critical clinical decision-making, and improved perception of patient care. These changes occurred without a decrease in housestaff's perceived decision-making autonomy.