Author Interviews, Education, JAMA, University of Pennsylvania / 16.04.2019
Medical Interns Spend 87 percent of Their Work Time Away From Patients
MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
Krisda Chaiyachati, MD, MPH, MSHP
Assistant Professor
Medicine, Perelman School of Medicine
Clinical Innovation Manager
Penn's Center for Health Care Innovation
Perelman School of Medicine
Medical Director, Penn Medicine's FirstCall Virtual Care
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings?
Response: The United States spends more than $12 billion annually on training young doctors who have rates of burnout and depression at an alarmingly high rate. Yet, we have limited evidence as to what they are doing while training in the hospital. We sought to glimpse into how their day is spent. In the largest study to date, we observed 80 first-year internal medicine physicians (“interns”) for nearly 2200 hours across 194 work shifts at 6 different sites. Our research sought to understand what medical residents did by categorizing training activities into themes such as time spent in education or patient care. (more…)