Hospitalist involvement in family medicine residency training: A CERA study

Little is known about the impact of hospitalists on family medicine residencies. We surveyed family medicine residency directors to assess attitudes about hospitalists and their involvement in residency teaching.

Questions were included in the 2012 Council of Academic Family Medicine Educational Research Alliance (CERA) survey of family medicine residency directors. Univariate statistics were used to describe programs, directors, and our questions on the use of hospitalists. Bivariate statistics were used to examine relationships between the use of hospitalists to teach and program characteristics.

Forty-one percent (n=175) of residency directors completed the hospitalist section of the CERA survey. Sixty-six percent of residency programs were community based/university affiliated. The majority of directors who have, or are planning to develop, a hospitalist service currently use an internal medicine service (92.5%), followed by family medicine (39.1%), pediatrics (35.4%), OB/laborists (18.0%), and combined services (8.7%). The majority of programs with a hospitalist training track (or plans to develop one) indicated that this was for a family medicine service. Sixty percent of programs that have a hospitalist service involve hospitalists in teaching. Twenty percent of directors reported that hospitalists serve as family medicine faculty, and 63% viewed them as "good educators." However, 85% reported no reduction in inpatient teaching by family medicine faculty despite using hospitalist teaching services.

Hospitalists have a significant educational role in family medicine resident training. Further research is needed to explore how hospitalists and family medicine faculty can collaborate to promote enhanced efficiency and effectiveness as residency teachers.