One of the things that is concerning now that I am applying for residency is the concept of doing my residency in a hospital that has private attending physicians. It seems to me that private attendings often don't give a damn about teaching, and they are much harder to reach for questions regarding patients. This as opposed to hospitals that only employ full time faculty members and hospitalists, that are dedicated to teaching. It seems that most hospitals have about 50/50 ratio, but some of the places I applied to, don't employ any private attendings at all. Does anyone else share this sentiment, and do you think programs that don't have private attendings are generally better hospitals in terms of teaching?
Private attendings Vs. Full time Faculty
- Thread starter mike24
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I might be in the minority, but some of the best teaching I have gotten is from private attendings in terms of clinical patient management as well as the business side of medicine which is very important to pick up on.
You are going to have s#itty teachers regardless of their status as faculty or private attendings. In a perfect world, the faculty attendings would take their job teaching seriously but this isn't 100% the case.
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It doesn't matter because you're gonna learn something or nothing from everyone anyways. Are the private attending involved formally with the program? If not, who cares. It'll have no effect on you. If so, they've signed up to work with residents, so that's that. Having diversity is a good thing. A 1st year learning medicine is different from a 3rd year ready to go out into practice.
