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. Method 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 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.