Outdoor walking rounds: combining resident education and wellness

It is challenging to achieve quality teaching on a busy resident service. Teams must balance the competing drivers of patient care, clinical efficiency, patient satisfaction and resident learning. Our novel outdoor walking rounds improve both the quality of resident instruction and their physician wellness without negatively affecting patient care.

Our team meets outside for attending rounds on the sidewalks or hiking trails near our hospital. The residents present their clinical plans as we walk. We are able to achieve more in-depth clinical discussions and teaching than with traditional rounds conducted inside. Residents were surveyed to compare their experiences with traditional rounds.

Twenty-seven residents were surveyed over 5 years (29.6% were first-year residents, 33.3% were second-year residents and 37.0% were third-year residents): 81% of residents indicated that walking rounds improved the time dedicated to teaching; 100% of residents believed that the quality of teaching had improved; 70% of residents indicated that walking rounds improved their sense of physician wellness; and 59% of residents identified that walking rounds were as efficient, or more efficient, than traditional rounds.

Striving to provide in-depth resident clinical teaching without negatively affecting the quality and efficiency of patient care is a tall order. Outdoor walking rounds are a teaching method that combines dedicated non-distracted time for resident teaching with exercise. Our study indicates that this teaching method improves the quantity and quality of dedicated teaching time, improves resident physician wellness and does so in an innovative way that maintains efficient patient care.