Internal Medicine Resident Professionalism Assessments: Exploring the Association with Patients' Overall Satisfaction with Their Hospital Stay

Abstract

Purpose Successful training of internal medicine (IM) residents requires accurate assessments. Patients could assess IM residents in a hospital setting, but medical educators must understand how contextual factors may affect assessments. The objective was to investigate relationships between patient, resident, and hospital-encounter characteristics and the results of patient assessments of IM resident professionalism. Method The authors performed a prospective cohort study of postgraduate year 1 (PGY-1) IM residents and their patients at 4 general medicine inpatient teaching services at Mayo Clinic Hospital-Rochester, Saint Marys Campus in Rochester, Minnesota, from July 1, 2015, through June 30, 2016. Patient assessments of resident professionalism were adapted from validated instruments. Multivariable modeling with generalized estimating equations was used to determine associations between patient assessment scores and characteristics of residents, residents' clinical performance and evaluations (including professionalism assessments in other settings), patients, and hospital encounters and to account for repeated assessments of residents. Results A total of 409 patients assessed 72 PGY-1 residents (mean [SD], 5.7 [3.0] patient assessments per resident). In the multivariable model, only the highest rating out of 5 levels for overall satisfaction with hospital stay was significantly associated with patient assessment scores of resident professionalism (β [SE], 0.80 [0.08]; P