No relationship between measures of clinical efficiency and teaching effectiveness for emergency medicine faculty

Abstract

Objectives: Emergency medicine (EM) doctors affiliated with academic institutions experience professional tension between providing excellent, timely care for patients and high-quality bedside instruction for residents and medical students. The goal of this study was to assess the relationship between measures of faculty clinical efficiency and teaching effectiveness.

Methods: This was a retrospective review of data from a single academic institution with an annual census of 55,000. Faculty clinical efficiency was measured by two variables: the relative value unit (RVU)/h ratio and average 'door to discharge' time. Teaching effectiveness was estimated by determining the average 'overall teaching' scores derived from anonymous EM resident and senior medical student evaluations. Relationships were assessed using the Spearman's correlation coefficient.

Results: There was no statistically significant relationship (p>0.050) between measures of faculty clinical efficiency and teaching effectiveness.

Conclusion: These data replicate previous findings that clinical productivity has no correlation with teaching effectiveness for emergency medicine faculty doctors.