Preparing residents to become more effective teachers: a priority for internal medicine

Abstract

Residents have always played a central role in the education of medical students on the internal medicine service, especially during the inpatient component of the core third-year clerkship. Not only do they participate in and support the formal curriculum, they are also the heart and soul of the informal curriculum. In recent years, attending faculty have come under increasing pressure to devote more time to patient care (laboriously documented) and to the pursuit of external funding for research. Although resident-teachers should not be expected to replace attending physicians, whose depth and breadth of experience with medical students and with the clerkship curriculum is essential to student education, the residents’ complementary teaching role has never been more important.