Perspectives

Balancing Clinical Ownership with Optimization of the Learning Environment for Resident Physicians

Authors: Patrick O. Godwin, MD

Abstract

The Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education states in its Program Requirements for Graduate Medical Education in Internal Medicine that residents must be provided with protected time to participate in core didactic activities, while acknowledging that sometimes there may be circumstances in which this is not possible.1 Although resident physicians need to be given time away from rounding and other clinical duties to attend didactic sessions, some Internal Medicine residency programs have interpreted the guidance from the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education to mean that residents should not be paged or called while attending conferences. At some programs the residents forward their pagers to their supervising attending physicians during didactic sessions, whereas at some other programs, chief residents return pages for the house staff during conferences.

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References

1. Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education. ACGME program requirements for graduate medical education in internal medicine. https://www.acgme.org/specialties/internal-medicine/program-requirements-and-faqs-and-applications. Published July 1, 2022. Accessed May 3, 2023.
 
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