A dilemma in teaching bedside cardiology

Excerpt

When I arrived on the cardiology inpatient ward on the first morning of a recent two-week attending rotation, I immediately noticed housestaff sitting in front of every computer monitor. Over the next few weeks, I witnessed these residents spending an inordinate amount of time in front of these monitors, engaged in a myriad of tasks: entering data for the electronic medical record (EMR), ordering laboratory and diagnostic imaging tests, requesting consultations, ordering drugs from the pharmacy, reviewing test results, viewing reports and images of radiological procedures, entering discharge orders, and downloading information and medical articles from Internet for learning at the point of care. Because their working hours in the hospital were limited, the residents spent a great deal of time entering data required for hand-offs to on-call residents, who had no knowledge of their patients. …