40 years of ward attending

January 1, 1980 I walked onto the 7th floor of the old North Hospital at the Medical College of Virginia to make rounds as the attending physician. I had spent much time there as an intern and resident, but now I had a new role. As I reflect on 40 years and probably between 12 and 15 years of total time making rounds, I first feel fortunate that I quickly discovered that my vocation was also my avocation. Now while I have retired from administrative responsibilities, I still devote 3.5 months each year to rounding with students, interns and residents. And each rotation still brings out the same excitement of going to the bedside and trying to help patients, of exposing students to the wonder of internal medicine, of helping interns through that difficult year and of helping residents in the final year of their internal medicine journey. When I started, I thought that I really knew what I was doing. On reflection, I had some excellent instincts, adequate knowledge and yet much to learn about leading a ward team. The job has changed dramatically over these 40 years, and hopefully so have I. In 1990, I had the wonderful opportunity to spend a month at Stanford, learning about teaching from Dr. Kelley Skeff. To this day, he remains one of my heroes and important colleagues. He taught us how to evaluate our own teaching. He provided a structure of the attributes for successful teachers: Creating a Positive Learning ClimateOrganizing Control of the Teaching SessionComm...
Source: DB's Medical Rants - Category: Internal Medicine Authors: Tags: Medical Rants Source Type: blogs