Identification of resident and attending physicians: do parents know who is caring for their hospitalized child?

Correct identification of a physician or resident is an essential first step in developing a good relationship between physicians, patients, and their families. However, many parents are unfamiliar with the individuals responsible for their children's care. This study was conducted to determine how often parents/guardians of hospitalized children could identify the residents and attending physicians caring for their children and what factors they considered important in physician identification.

This was a cross-sectional study with a convenience sample of the parents/guardians of hospitalized pediatric patients admitted to a university teaching hospital over a 2-month period; we used a self-administered, confidential questionnaire.

Subjects were 144 parents/guardians of hospitalized children (100% of subjects asked to participate, 19.3% of all hospitalized children); parents had the following characteristics: mean age, 30 years; 51% Caucasian, 43% African American; 82% female. Physician identification was 76% for attending physicians and 73% for residents. The factors rated as most important to parents were physician introduction (50%-76%), prior relationship (27%-13%), wearing of a white coat (2%-8%), wearing of a name tag (4%-10%), and wearing of a stethoscope (0%-2%). Physician introduction was ranked higher for first hospitalizations. Subsequent hospitalizations increased identification of attending physicians but not residents.

This study indicates that up to a quarter of parents could not identify the physician responsible for their children's care during a hospitalization. Improving physician identification may enhance other aspects of physician-family communication.