Journal of general internal medicine
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Multicenter Study
Disclosing medical errors to patients: attitudes and practices of physicians and trainees.
Disclosing errors to patients is an important part of patient care, but the prevalence of disclosure, and factors affecting it, are poorly understood. ⋯ There appears to be a gap between physicians' attitudes and practices regarding error disclosure. Willingness to disclose errors was associated with higher training level and a variety of patient-centered attitudes, and it was not lessened by previous exposure to malpractice litigation.
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Mandatory work hour limitations for residents began in July 2003. There has been little evaluation of the impact of the new limitations on Internal Medicine residency training. ⋯ This study suggests that the current work hour limitations may be having unintended negative consequences on residency training. Ongoing monitoring to evaluate the impact of program changes as a result of work hour regulation is crucial to improving residency training.
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Although frequent contacts with health care systems may represent more opportunities to receive preventive services, excess body weight has been linked to decreased access to preventive services and quality of care. ⋯ These first data from SHARE did not suggest that overweight or obesity were associated with decreased use of preventive services.
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Residents have a major role in teaching students, yet little has been written about the effects of resident work hour restrictions on medical student education. ⋯ Whereas resident duty hour restrictions at our institution have had minimal effect on students' ratings of the overall teaching quality, they do report being taught more by their residents. This may be a factor of decreased resident fatigue or an increased sense of well-being; but more study is needed to clarify the causes of our observations.