Clinician Productivity with and without Students

Abstract

This review of clinician workload measurement system (WMS) data at two Canadian hospitals compared clinician time use when students were and were not placed with them. Using the national WMS data, time was sub-divided into direct patient care and indirect patient care. A longitudinal design allowed clinicians to serve as their own control. The findings indicated that 87% of clinicians (n=23) had no significant difference in their direct and indirect patient care time with and without students (n=71). With a larger sample, it is expected that students would actually increase time spent by a clinician on direct patient care and either make no difference or negligibly increase time spent on indirect patient care. This study demonstrated that contrary to popular opinion, having students can actually increase clinician productivity with respect to patient care.