Did you get your money ’ s worth today?

It started as a joke, but it has become a mantra.  I discuss this phrase on the Curbsider’s podcast. Our medical students pay (in my opinion) an obscene tuition.  They are buying a medical education.  Therefore we should remember that they are customers who have paid for our service. As a clinician educator, I try to remember every day that I owe the learners my best effort.  I have a wonderful career caring for patients and teaching those learners.  The learners make my patient care responsibilities much simpler.  But my job involves helping all the learners grow each day. Learning internal medicine requires persistence and hard work.  Our field is vast and complex.  We start with naive 3rd year students, have fun with acting interns (4th year students), help interns through that difficult year and have the pleasure of fine tuning our excellent residents. Inpatient rounding and clinic attending require us to strive that our patients receive high quality care.  During patient care delivery we provide role models and work daily to stretch our learners.  We owe them our best effort at helping them grow. Each day I ask myself, did I give them adequate value.  Ask yourself and your learners.  Did you give them their money’s worth?
Source: DB's Medical Rants - Category: Internal Medicine Authors: Tags: Medical Rants Source Type: blogs