Student involvement on teaching rounds.

Background: Inpatient internal medicine education occurs in a fragile learning environment. The authors hypothesized that when medical students are involved in teaching rounds, residents may perceive a decrease in value of attending teaching.

Methods: During two summer periods, trained research assistants shadowed teaching rounds, tracking patient census and team call status, recording basic content of rounds, and delivering a survey instrument to the learners, asking them to rate the quality of the attending's teaching that day.

Results: One hundred sixty-six rounds were analyzed. Attending teaching ratings peaked when students were highly involved. In fact, high student involvement was an independent predictor of higher resident evaluation of teaching rounds (P < .0001).

Conclusions: The best teaching occurred when involvement of medical students was greatest and their involvement was not necessarily a zero-sum game. The authors conclude that attending investment in medical student education during teaching rounds benefits all members of the inpatient team.