Internal medicine training in the inpatient setting. A review of published educational interventions.

PURPOSE: Although the inpatient setting has served as the predominant educational site of internal medicine training programs, many changes and factors are currently affecting education in this setting. As a result, many educational organizations are calling for reforms in inpatient training. This report reviews the available literature on specific internal medicine inpatient educational interventions and proposes recommendations for improving internal medicine training in this setting.
METHOD: We searched Medline for articles published between 1966 and August 2004 which focused on internal medicine training interventions in the inpatient setting; bibliographies of Medline-identified articles, as well as articles suggested by experts in the field provided additional citations. We then reviewed, classified, and abstracted only articles where an assessment of learner outcomes was included.
RESULTS: Thirteen studies of inpatient internal medicine educational interventions were found that included an outcome assessment. All were single institution studies. The majority of these studies was of poor methodological quality and focused on specific content areas of internal medicine. None assessed the effectiveness or impact of internal medicine core inpatient experiences or curriculum.
CONCLUSION: This review identifies significant gaps in our understanding of what constitutes effective inpatient education. The paucity of high quality research in the internal medicine inpatient setting highlights the urgent need to formally define and study what constitutes an effective "core" inpatient curriculum.