Source
University of California, San Francisco, CA 94143, USA. clai@medicine.ucsf.edu
Abstract
OBJECTIVE:
To assess the reading habits and educational resources of primary care internal medicine residents for their ambulatory medicine education.
DESIGN:
Cross-sectional, multiprogram survey of primary care internal medicine residents.
PARTICIPANTS/SETTING:
Second- and third-year residents on ambulatory care rotations at 9 primary care medicine programs (124 eligible residents; 71% response rate).
MEASUREMENTS AND MAIN RESULTS:
Participants were asked open-ended and 5-point Likert-scaled questions about reading habits: time spent reading, preferred resources, and motivating and inhibiting factors. Participants reported reading medical topics for a mean of 4.3+/-3.0 SD hours weekly. Online-only sources were the most frequently utilized medical resource (mean Likert response 4.16+/-0.87). Respondents most commonly cited specific patients' cases (4.38+/-0.65) and preparation for talks (4.08+/-0.89) as motivating factors, and family responsibilities (3.99+/-0.65) and lack of motivation (3.93+/-0.81) as inhibiting factors.
CONCLUSIONS:
To stimulate residents' reading, residency programs should encourage patient- and case-based learning; require teaching assignments; and provide easy access to online curricula.