No studies have compared patient records dictated by students with cases recorded in logbooks. Over 2 years, all patient encounters dictated by 79 medical students during their 8-week family medicine rotations were recorded and compared with information in the students logbooks. Still, this rate of inclusion is higher than other studies where students did not dictate patient encounters. On the average, each student saw and dictated 32 patient encounters but omitted five to six from their logs. There were no significant differences between the 10 honors and 69 non-honors students in the proportion of patients omitted from log books.
Medical students underreport patient encounters in clerkship logbooks.
Keeping a record of the patients dictated by medical students was helpful in determining the accuracy of students logbooks. Demands for change in medical practices are coming from multiple sources. Since interventions to change clinical practice continue to have limited success, understanding the functional structure of primary care practices and the dynamics of providing care have become increasingly important. To portray and understand the primary care office system, we developed practice genograms that describe practice participants and their relationships with each other. Formal organizational structure is evaluated using family systems theory and family of origin genogram techniques.