The Influence of an Intern-Resident Staff on the Quality of Private Patient Care

The current numerical disparity between available internships and residencies and available candidates has carried the implication that hospitals less fortunate in recruitment offer less effective medical care to their patients. A good house staff has become a status symbol, indicating superior staff and superior resources. That the teaching hospital offers the best medical care is unchallenged in our day; yet many patients, unaware of this distinction, are hospitalized in institutions without house staff and expect service of high quality. This study presents an attempt to compare objectively the quality of medical care on two geographically separate private medical services in a single community hospital. The same attending physicians admitted similar patients to both sections; the only difference between services lay in the fact that interns and residents were assigned to the one, while on the other the attending physicians practiced medicine unassisted by house staff. Materials and Methods The private