Is Experience a Good Teacher?

Ira B. Wilson, Michael L. Green, Lee Goldman, Joel Tsevat, E. Francis Cook and Russell S. Phillips
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Ira B. Wilson: Address correspondence and reprint requests to Dr. Wilson: New England Medical Center 345, 750 Washington Street, Boston, MA 02111

Medical Decision Making, 1997, vol. 17, issue 2, 217-227

Abstract: Background. Recent studies have shown that physicians do not accurately assess patients' health status or treatment preferences. Little is known, however, about how physicians' levels of training or experience relate to their abilities to assess these preferences. To better understand this phenomenon, the authors compared the abilities of medical interns and attending physicians to predict the choices of their adult patients for end-of-life care. Methods. 230 seriously-ill adult inpatients were surveyed about their desires for cardiopulmonary resuscitation, their current quality of life, and their attitudes toward six other common adverse outcomes. The medical intern and attending physician who cared for these patients were asked to estimate the patient's responses for all of the same items. Agreement was assessed using the kappa statistic. Results. Compared with interns, attending physicians had known patients longer, had talked with patients more frequently about prognosis, and felt they knew more about their patients' preferences (all p

Date: 1997
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:medema:v:17:y:1997:i:2:p:217-227

DOI: 10.1177/0272989X9701700213

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