Effects on Physician Practice After Exposure to a Patient-Centered Care Curriculum During Residency

Background: A novel patient-centered curricular experience was implemented in an internal medicine residency program in 2007. There is little published evidence that what is taught in residency affects practice after graduation. Objective: We sought to evaluate whether graduates perceived any long-term effects of participation in this patient-centered curriculum. Methods: From July to September 2015, a web-based survey with quantitative and qualitative components was sent to graduates of the program to assess self-reported effects of this curriculum on current practice. Graduates spent 2 to 8 weeks on the intervention team during their training. Responses to open-ended questions were independently coded by 2 investigators, using the editing analysis method. Emergent themes and representative quotes are reported. Results: Of 150 residents who completed at least 1 year of training from 2007 to 2014, 94 of 110 (85%) with available email addresses responded to this survey. Of respondents, 21 (22%) were still in fellowship training, and 71 (76%) were in full-time practice. The majority responded "a great deal" when asked if the experience was valuable to their training as a physician (72 of 94, 77%) or influenced their practice (59 of 94, 63%). Free-text comments indicate that residents felt the experience enhanced their understanding of social determinants of health, communication skills, relationship building, and ability to tailor treatments to individual patients. Conclusions: Internal medicine residency graduates reported that exposure to a curriculum focused on knowing patients as individuals had important enduring effects on their practice.