Medical student procedures and attending faculty exposure

Area of Science:

• Medical Education
• Emergency Medicine
• Clinical Skills Training

Background:

• Medical student training in emergency medicine (EM) electives.
• Assessing factors influencing procedural competency during EM rotations.

Purpose of the Study:

• To determine if consistent attending physician mentorship during EM electives impacts the number of procedures performed by medical students.
• Investigate the relationship between attending continuity and procedural volume in EM education.

Main Methods:

• Retrospective observational study of 144 fourth-year medical students.
• Analysis of Attendance/Procedure Logs from July 2004 to March 2007.
• Comparison of procedural counts between students with consistent (≥4 shifts) and varied attending interactions.

Main Results:

• Students with consistent attending mentorship performed a mean of 12.9 procedures versus 6.3 in the varied group.
• This difference was significant across all procedural categories, including arterial blood gas, abscess drainage, laceration repair, lumbar puncture, and nasogastric tube insertion.
• 43.8% of students worked with a consistent attending.

Conclusions:

• Working with a single attending physician for four or more shifts significantly increases the number of procedures performed by medical students during their EM elective.
• Attending continuity appears to enhance procedural skill acquisition and performance in emergency medicine trainees.
• Findings suggest optimizing mentorship models in EM education to improve student procedural experience.