Book Review #3: Medical Teaching in Ambulatory Care (Third Edition)

Title of book: Medical Teaching in Ambulatory Care (Third Edition)

Correct names of all authors: Warren Rubenstein, Yves Talbot

Publisher’s name, geographic location, date: University of Toronto Press, Toronto, 2020

ISBN number of book: 978-1-442-66233-9

Number of pages in book: 153 pages

Price of book: $51.30 (paperback, hardcopy) through amazon.ca

Summary:

In “Medical Teaching in Ambulatory Care” Rubenstein and Talbot examine the unique challenges and opportunities associated with teaching in outpatient settings. They emphasize the growing importance of ambulatory care as a teaching environment due to the shift in healthcare delivery from inpatient to outpatient care. The authors identify key obstacles, such as time constraints, frequent interruptions, and the need to balance patient care with educational objectives.

Strengths:

This text has relevance in addressing a crucial gap in medical education literature, as ambulatory care has traditionally received less attention compared to inpatient teaching. The recommendations for optimizing teaching in a fast-paced, outpatient environment are practical and actionable, making the article a valuable resource for medical educators, particularly in my field of office-based family medicine. By emphasizing a learner-centred approach, Rubenstein and Talbot clearly strive to align their framework with contemporary best practices in medical education, such as fostering autonomy and self-directed learning.

Weaknesses:

As a practicing family physician, I have found that a significant challenge for the teacher is making time for documentation into electronic medical records. You either need to chart with the learner idly observing or save this time-consuming task until the end of the day. Reflecting upon my own medical training, I felt somewhat ill-equipped to use EMR skillfully coming out of residency. I have always felt that somewhere in this conflict lies a missed opportunity. Given the essential nature of EMR utilization and charting to the clinical routine, it would have been nice to have a chapter in this book dedicated to the use of teaching using such technologies, the use of teaching AI scribes for clinical documentation, and discussion around telemedicine. This felt a notable absence in this text.

Rating and Recommendations: 4/5

In reflection, I found that “Medical Teaching in Ambulatory Care” by Rubenstein and Talbot offers valuable insights into ambulatory care teaching, and indeed, many concepts described (e.g. focusing on brief, targeted teaching moments and leveraging the patient encounter as a learning tool) resonated with me in highlighting some of the more memorable moments as a learner in my medical education. Thus, it was interesting to see these concepts elaborated upon and fleshed out as objectives for medical educators. It is my opinion that its impact could be enhanced by integrating technological advancements particularly in medical documentation.