Published in:
01-09-2009 | Original Article
Association Between Hand-off Patients and Subject Exam Performance in Medicine Clerkship Students
Authors:
Valerie J. Lang, MD, Christopher J. Mooney, MA, Alec B. O’Connor, MD, MPH, Donald R. Bordley, MD, Stephen J. Lurie, MD, PhD
Published in:
Journal of General Internal Medicine
|
Issue 9/2009
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ABSTRACT
BACKGROUND
Teaching hospitals increasingly rely on transfers of patient care to another physician (hand-offs) to comply with duty hour restrictions. Little is known about the impact of hand-offs on medical students.
OBJECTIVE
To evaluate the impact of hand-offs on the types of patients students see and the association with their subsequent Medicine Subject Exam performance.
DESIGN
Observational study over 1 year.
PARTICIPANTS
Third-year medical students in an Inpatient Medicine Clerkship at five hospitals with night float systems.
MEASUREMENTS
Primary outcome: Medicine Subject Exam at the end of the clerkship; explanatory variables: number of fresh (without prior evaluation) and hand-off patients, diagnoses, subspecialty patients, and full evaluations performed during the clerkship, and United Stated Medical Licensing Examination (USMLE) Step I scores.
MAIN RESULTS
Of the 2,288 patients followed by 89 students, 990 (43.3%) were hand-offs. In a linear regression model, the only variables significantly associated with students’ Subject Exam percentile rankings were USMLE Step I scores (B = 0.26, P < 0.001) and the number of full evaluations completed on fresh patients (B =0.20, P = 0.048; model r
2 = 0.58). In other words, for each additional fresh patient evaluated, Subject Exam percentile rankings increased 0.2 points. For students in the highest quartile of Subject Exam percentile rankings, only Step I scores showed a significant association (B = 0.22, P = 0.002; r
2 = 0.5). For students in the lowest quartile, only fresh patient evaluations demonstrated a significant association (B = 0.27, P = 0.03; r
2 = 0.34).
CONCLUSIONS
Hand-offs constitute a substantial portion of students’ patients and may have less educational value than “fresh” patients, especially for lower performing students.