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

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.

Figures

Figure 1

Frequency of reading sources used for ambulatory medicine.

Figure 2

Motivating factors for reading ambulatory medicine. Motivating factors were rated according to the frequency that each motivated residents to read.

Figure 3

Inhibiting factors for reading ambulatory medicine. Each inhibiting factor was rated according to the respondents' degree of agreement.