It's hard to be a good mentor when you're feeling fried and overworked. A lot of the time, though, that's the position in which primary care physicians find themselves when residents rotate through their practices, and it's hard to imagine closing the physician gap under those circumstances, writes Fred N. Pelzman, M.D., in an article for MedPage Today.
The current process for primary care rotations fails to inspire medical students in part because the programs are structured to suit healthcare organizations' economics, according to Pelzman. Training gets focused on inpatient services because residents in training are a cheap labor source, he says, but a model where a student takes care of patients in more of an apprentice role, with more relaxed, unrushed time would be a major improvement.
Under current conditions, seeing between one and three patients in a practice session won't cut it, Pelzman acknowledges. As it stands, med school doesn't necessarily prepare students for the realities of practice anyway, often failing to equip students with the skills they need to engage with patients in the current healthcare environment, as FiercePracticeManagement previously reported.
Given the spread of burnout and the overall state of primary care, however, Pelzman sees a shift to a more coherent, team-based primary care practice, along the lines of the patient-centered medical home model, as an opportunity both to improve the field for those already in it and to make it more attractive to young doctors at the same time. In his view, such a change would rejuvenate physicians' love of primary practice, which in turn would provide natural inspiration to students during training.
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