Medical Students’ Observations of High Value and Potentially Wasteful Care Behaviors Modeled During Clinical Rotations

Background: Medical student exposure to role-modeling of high-value care (HVC) behaviors may shape professional identity formation and future HVC practices. Objective: To investigate the frequency and characteristics of HVC role-modeling witnessed by medical students during core clinical rotations. Design: Cross-sectional survey study. Participants: Medical students on clinical rotations at 11 US medical schools. Main Measures: A validated 13-item survey was used to assess medical student perception of cost-conscious role-modeling behaviors or potentially wasteful role-modeling behaviors and modified to include whom demonstrated the behavior (attending vs resident/fellow) and during which clinical rotation the modeling occurred. Key Results: Cost-conscious role-modeling behaviors were observed by medical students sometimes/often 52.9–70.5% (353/667–452/641) of the time across all clinical rotations, except for praising a student for ordering a cost-effective diagnostic work-up which was seen only 25.7% (143/556) of the time. Potentially wasteful role-modeling behaviors were observed sometimes/often 5–14.3% (26/537–87/609) of the time, except simultaneously ordering numerous tests before seeing results of initial screening tests 45.1% (273/605) and repeating tests rather than attempting to obtain recently performed test results 32.2% (194/602). HVC modeling was most often demonstrated by internal medicine attendings 67.7% (65/96) and least frequently by general surgery attendings 47.3% (17/36). Attendings were overall more likely to model HVC compared to residents/fellows. Conclusion: HVC role-modeling, as observed by medical students, is not consistently demonstrated across clinical rotations. Attendings generally model more HVC than residents and general surgery models less HVC compared to other specialties. Future studies should strive to identify factors which promote or inhibit HVC modeling.