Tips for IM attendings – Chapter 20 – why we ask questions

I had a wonderful dinner with some medical students last night.  Earlier in the day at morning report I had asked them multiple questions.  Given the ongoing debate over pimping (a debate that will likely never end), I asked them to reflect on the questioning. They had several thoughts (all positive) and during the discussion I started to understand better the power of questioning.  As attending physicians we should ask questions.  I often frame the questioning as a process for determining what we should discuss.  If the learners know the answers, then further discussion may be a waste of time.  If they do not know, and the question is clinically important, then we should spend time making certain that our learners understand the issue. The key here is that questioning should focus on essential basics of internal medicine.  Sometimes we ask arcane questions, and that case we should label the question as such.  Some questions are student questions; some questions are intern questions; some are for the resident.  We should understand this and not expect students to know the answer to a resident question. The students really liked questions that point out important holes in their knowledge base.  They want to learn medicine, and therefore we have a responsibility to make clear what they should know about standard topics. So whether we call it pimping, or grilling, or just questioning, we should continue to explore their knowledge and help them improve that knowledge ev...
Source: DB's Medical Rants - Category: Internal Medicine Authors: Tags: Medical Rants Source Type: blogs