Summary: | Background: Medical education has experienced a gradual shift away from traditional bedside attending rounds, from 75% of rounds occurring at bedside in the 1960s to about 30% today.
Aim: To examine attending physicians' attitudes towards bedside teaching and physical exam.
Methods: Anonymous survey of medical attendings in six academic hospitals.
Results: 77% of respondents (n=97) completed the survey. The vast majority (89%) of attendings concurred that physical diagnosis skills are essential, felt that more emphasis on bedside teaching is needed (77%), and believed that bedside teaching should be a priority (71%). Additionally, 87% reported that bedside rounds are important to patient care. Yet, only 31% reported conducting teaching rounds at bedside. Finally, only 5% of attendings trained outside the US expressed fear of poor teaching performance in front of house staff, compared with US trained attendings (28%, p=0.023).
Conclusion: Physicians are spending less and less time at the bedside, particularly those trained within the United States. At a time when the U.S. healthcare system is struggling to meet the increasing demand of escalating costs and declining patient satisfaction, the return to bedside teaching may be a surprisingly simple and untapped solution.
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