Educational Continuity in Clinical Clerkships

Continuity in medical-student clerkships is becoming a thing of the past. There is little continuity between students and teachers, between students and patients, and between specialty-based components of the curriculum. Although block rotations in clerkships have been used for more than 100 years, in Abraham Flexner's day, patients, teachers, and students were together in the hospital for extended periods on medicine, obstetrics, and surgery services, which provided excellent opportunities to learn in a relatively relaxed and longitudinally mentored environment. Not so today.Faculty members struggle to meet clinical productivity quotas while maintaining teaching and research responsibilities. Attending physicians are on . . .