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1: J Gen Intern Med. 2006 May;21(5):486-9.Click here to read Links

Brief report: Multiprogram evaluation of reading habits of primary care internal medicine residents on ambulatory rotations.

Lai CJ, Aagaard E, Brandenburg S, Nadkarni M, Wei HG, Baron R.

University of California, San Francisco, CA 94143, USA. clai@medicine.ucsf.edu

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.

PMID: 16704393 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]

PMCID: PMC1484781