Patients' understanding of the roles of interns, residents, and attending physicians in the emergency department

Objective: To assess patients' knowledge of the responsibilities and roles of physician training in the ED. Methods: This was a prospective survey of a convenience sample of 345 adult patients and family members in an academi c county ED. Thirty questions addressed the different roles, responsibiliti es, and hierarchies of physician levels of training. Four opinion-based que stions assessed patients' willingness to have physicians-in-training care f or them. Results: 96.5% of the surveys were returned. Of the participants r esponding, 68% were Hispanic, 23% were non-Hispanic white, and 55% were wom en. Forty percent of the participants indicated that they had education gre ater than a high school diploma. Most participants answered fewer than 50% of the questions correctly, indicating that they did not understand the lev els of physician training. Participants with higher education were more lik ely to know the correct answer. Seventy-nine percent of the participants be lieved that it is very important to know the level of training of their phy sicians. However, only 34% of the participants actually thought they knew t he training level of their physicians when they were being treated. Twenty- nine percent of the participants did not want learning to take place on the mselves by physicians-in-training. Conclusion: Participants believe that it is important to know their physicians' level of training, but they do not understand the roles and responsibilities of physicians-in-training in the medical training system in which they receive care. In particular, patients who have less than a high school education seem to know least about this s ystem.