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Primary preceptor: Physicians tackle teaching what they practice

Community doctors take medical students into their offices for a firsthand look at hands-on medicine. The experience benefits both parties.

By Jay Greene, amednews staff. June 25, 2001.

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Ross Friedman, MD, an internist in New York City, teaches "real world" medicine one day a week to second-year medical students. Dr. Friedman does so not in the confines of a lecture hall or laboratory, but at his downtown office.

"Before the student sees the patient, I ask the patient. I've never had a patient that minded," said Dr. Friedman, in his second year as a clinical preceptor.

Jessica Foss, a second-year medical student at Texas A&M University Health Science Center College of Medicine in College Station, has seen dozens of patients in only her third full week at Scott & White Clinic, a multispecialty group practice in Temple, Texas. "This is a great learning experience," said Foss, who will work 10-hour days for four weeks in her first clerkship. "I get to see patients, take case histories and do procedures like removing moles and cysts. It's nice to actually do things I studied about in my first year. It increases my interest in medicine."

While one study shows that community preceptors work 45 minutes a day longer when teaching students and can lose one to two patient billings each day, Dr. Friedman said having students around is like a continuing medical education experience. Some schools even award CME credits for precepting.

"Having students in my office forces me to keep up-to-date," said Dr. Friedman, who is one of 350 community preceptors for some 770 students at New York Medical College in Valhalla. "They are so bright and ask so many questions. It takes more time and you have to be patient, but it is not a burden." [...]