What is your teaching style for residents and/or fellows?

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NewYorkDoctors

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This is not a Nephrology bashing thread, I swear! Lol

I previously did academic faculty for a year with residents fellows before I moved onto private practice and voluntary faculty (meaning if my patients are in the hospital, I see my own patients but involve the residents and/or fellows on the case if it is on the housestaff floor and/or is an interesting case, respectively). Therefore, I do a lot of heavy lifting myself. When no housestaff are involved, I write all the notes (like real notes, not that copy and paste BS autopopulate one line BS - then again I am a Generation Y who grew up with computers and can type very fast), do all the usual care coordination stuff with case management etc..., then follow up the same patients outpatient. I do my own billing (the EMR i use makes this easy) and coding, quality metrics, prior authorizations (the online portals makes this easy no excuses), and all the other stuff ancillary stuff. The point I am making is I am a very "do as I say and as I do" person. If i have housestaff on a case, I would round appropriately (versus a private treating the residents like PAs) and take some time to teach stuff. But if I notice an omission in the presentation or physical or something, I would not go all high and mighty. I would say okay lets see the patient and examine.

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I've read this book so I will go to the lengths of doing all the less common physical exam techniques as a matter of principle in front of housestaff. Then comment how useless some of these things are in the current era (when patients are not waiting until the utmost end of TB hemorrhagic pericarditis as in the early 20th century, the Beck's triad for cardiac tamponade is a less sensitive set of physical exam findings) of medicine and with the obesity epidemic, many of these exam findings are not very robust. But we will still do them! If anything, I do it just so I can show those older attendings who keep lamenting "no one does physical exam anymore" that people still do it. I'd like to see Sir William Osler try to have a conversation with the modern patient population.

Then I bust out my smartphone ultrasound and start doing POCUS.

This whole process takes more time, but this "do as I say and as I do" approach works better for reinforcing key concepts to housestaff. I make up for the "lost time" by simply using the EMR very efficient on two screens (Extend) and typing super duper fast.

What is the point of this thread? Looking back on my medical training, there was a LOT of "do as I say, not as I do" approach from attendings (in IM and the subspecialties I trained in) and a lot of blame game. Well why didnt' you do this? Why not? You should have done this. Why not? Ok... nvm ill do it myself go write the notes for me on time. There was seldom meaningful rounds outside of computer rounds. Some attendings did walk to the bedside but it was just to listen to the patient complain about the food and stuff and the attending would just do a basic auscultation or something.

The only hands on attendings I had in my residency and fellowships were the ICU attendings. But academic ICU is just designed to be hands on from the procedures, POCUS, bedside TEEs, trach placement, etc...

I do realize why this is the case. There are so many paperwork and documentation requirements these days. But rather than complain about that, I just leverage technology to my benefit and become much faster and more efficient. Dual screens with extend and typing at 150WPM is the key. These are fairly easy from anyone from Gen Y onward who grew up with computers. But fret not boomers, when I become old, I will probably yell at the clouds about why holographic technology sucks and "in my day, I actually typed on a keyboard!"


Anyway, what is your teaching style?

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Thank you so much for sharing your story.

You are right that I personally really hate attendings about blame games, especially over trivial stuff. It makes people nervous.
This whole process takes more time, but this "do as I say and as I do" approach works better for reinforcing key concepts to housestaff. I make up for the "lost time" by simply using the EMR very efficient on two screens (Extend) and typing super duper fast.
 
I tell the housestaff up-front when I come on service that I'm not big on "stand at the whiteboard and give a lecture on one topic"-type teaching, but rather try to find important (usually recurring) elements or themes with the patients we have on service and try to do much of the teaching at bedside.
 
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Thank you so much for sharing your story.

You are right that I personally really hate attendings about blame games, especially over trivial stuff. It makes people nervous.
In instances in which a resident or fellow took a shortcut and was incomplete, it is fine for the attending to call him/her out on this. But it should be hands on and "this is what I would do. let's do this together so next time youll do it also. there is logic to this. the logic is don't get me sued."

i used to have more respect for the attendings (usually IM) who told me straight up doing something (not a wasteful test) like following through a certain detail or documenting a certain detail may help clarify a tough situation and may prevent lawsuits. when it was vague and nebulous, i would often roll my eyes.
 
I'm a resident so I can give some things I like for attendings to do.

1.) Do bedside rounds. I'm not asking for some old-school doctor to show us outdated exam maneuvers, but I learnt how to assess pitting edema appropriately at the bedside. The same goes with JVD, vent settings, chest tube air leaks, etc. Table rounds are convenient, but we also experience less. Even small things like patient's ranting, etc. I like to see how you model patient care.

2.) Give constructive feedback. If we do something wrong, be like this is OK/Fair/Not ideal...here's why, here's what I do, here's why. Take note and you can reflect the resident's ability to take feedback on their evaluation.

3.) It's OK to do it during rounds BUT avoid phrases like "when presenting, you should start with the chief complaint and give me the relevant information up front"...while we may have mis-stepped/got nervous/sidetracked, we know that...If you say that , it comes off as patronizing and it's not really teaching us everything. It's especially humiliating when the M3 who presents after does it exactly right because they just saw us get crapped on. I see a lot of well meaning attendings do this. Instead, just interrupt quickly and day, "gimme the reason for consult first".

4.) Billing and documentation are important. Eventually we will be doing it on our own. If you tells us to write something in some way, explain why and tie it into DRGs, suing, etc. Many residents still document like "per Surgery there is no bowel perforation, CT abdomen reveals free air under diaphragm, per nurse, surgery did not come to bedside and assess". Explain good documentation hygiene.

5.) Avoid spending time with any lectures on anything board-material related. We have didactics and textbooks for that. That said, if you notice a teaching point that nicely ties in with a board topic, mention it and be like, a good point is that "XYZ". It's commonly tested on the boards and they'll give you a patient with ABC and tell you DEF, and just know they're testing "XYZ". Teach us the common stuff. No need to teach minutiae unless asked. Teach us to recognize patterns you see that go beyond what we learn in medical school.

Ex.) When you a patient being treated for HF and see low Cl and high bicarb, think contraction alkalosis.
Ex.) polymorphic VT is usually ischemia until proven otherwise.
Ex.) If you see longstanding COPD/Asthma in the chart without PFTs/inhalers to explain it and the patient has peripheral edema, think undiagnosed pulmonary HTN. Sometimes it's missed.

6.) If we do something wrong, don't say something soft like that's not how I'd do it. In medical school, I asked about giving lasix to a patient in the ICU in septic shock because I thought they got too much and they have HF. The attending was like, mmm...maybe in the future. What I'd rather have heard was how that's a no-no and why.

7.) If something isn't a one-step deduction, don't ask questions where we're supposed to read your mind.
 
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The local big hospital started an IM program this past year. We are expecting to have second year residents later in 2022.

I’m just not very academically minded. I feel like when I have had medical students or residents in the past, I try to focus more on practical approaches and real life applications than focusing on minutiae.

I like the above mention of approaches to documentation and billing.

I am afraid that it would be easy to be too busy to do a good job with our current setup so we are looking how to make adjustments to accommodate teaching. We may have a teaching service that is not as heavy. I don’t want to lose efficiency, but I think it just takes time to teach well.
 
Anyway, what is your teaching style?
Mixture of practical stuff/clinical pearls like what to look for when presented with certain lab findings and then I have stuff that is actually interesting (to me) but it steers away from "this is board material". I have come up with 1-3 minute chalk talks on why it should be called hyperlactatemia and not lactic acidosis, cirrhosis, specifics of ALT/AST, hepatocellular vs cholestatic injury, why we specifically see STE in transmural infarct vs STD in partial, etc. and try to do these when we see a relevant patient.
 
When I cite landmark clinical trials, I do not bother to pimp the resident / fellow on the acronym of the study. I just flat out say what the acronym is. If he/she knows the acronym, I commend him/her on downloading the Journal Club app for $1. Rather I am more concerned that they are able to cite the EBM bottom line (maybe they read from board review or a journal article) and how it is applied in patient care versus the acronym itself and the actual study design.
 
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When I cite landmark clinical trials, I do not bother to pimp the resident / fellow on the acronym of the study. I just flat out say what the acronym is. If he/she knows the acronym, I commend him/her on downloading the Journal Club app for $1. Rather I am more concerned that they are able to cite the EBM bottom line (maybe they read from board review or a journal article) and how it is applied in patient care versus the acronym itself and the actual study design.

Signaling is mandatory at top academic centers.
 
this thread makes me realize i might need to add some structure my resident teaching style :lol:

most of my teaching is in the outpatient IM setting, so the clinical format is a bit different.

im pretty flexi-casual at baseline. when we preround on someone complex, i try to bring their attention to the most important things. when they staff with me:
1.) my main question after S.O.A is "what do you think is their #1 problem?" - this helps me assess/organize their priorities
2.) when they verbalize the problem list, if i find it...lacking, i prompt quite a bit with "what else do you think it could be?" and "what do we want to be sure to not miss?" - this helps me assess their knowledge base and expand their differential
3.) when theyre done, i offer lots of pointed positive reinforcement bc these residents are really smart, man.

obviously, newer learners need more prompting than more seasoned ones, but often the newer learners are still picking up medical knowledge and the more seasoned ones tend to overlook some of the basics. so for a PGY3, i might say more like "i would also consider doing x", if their plan is already excellent. i interrupt more than i'd like to, with questions (workin' on it) and intentionally avoid correcting learners in front of their patients (unless it's uber wrong or life threatening, but it's usually not, in the clinic), as i like to support their competence and the patient's confidence in their PCP.
 
back in my residency program, there was 4+1 system so a full week was dedicated to outpatient GIM. The preceptors there were strong and they had a full PCMH setup there. The attendings that taught GIM the best were the ones who were able to help the residents organize and sift through the patient's ramblings. I mean some overall healthy and well spoken patients are not hard encounters. Those are the prototypical medical school cases. But many underprivileged patients have a hard time organizing their thoughts and are just all over the place at the doctors visit.

Basically, as a Gen Y myself, I do not expect coddling or hand holding. But I will follow the leaders who actually lead by example. Us Gen Y and Z can't stand the "do as I say, not as I do" approach that some of the older generation of physicians tend to employ.
 
If you have med students or interns, this book might be helpful along with the physical exam book you had in your original post
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