In addition to learning to function as a member of the healthcare team, scribes who work in academic settings learn how to function in a complex workflow involving medical students, residents, fellows, and consultants. Due to this immersion and opportunities to work with multiple clinicians, scribes are also exposed to different styles of interacting with patients, and different models for balancing the demands of medical practice-all of which can help scribes carve their own identity as they advance into the profession. This includes not only the satisfaction of helping individuals when they are most vulnerable but also the burdens associated with time constraints and strict regulations. Unlike shadowing, which provides only a limited perspective of a physician’s work-life, scribes get a realistic sense of what being a physician entails. In addition to helping elevate the quality of patient care, these activities give scribes special insight into the feel and flow of clinical practice. Scribes often assist busy clinicians with the many details and tasks involved in patient care, including retrieving imaging and laboratory studies, notifying nursing that a patient is ready for medications, managing various aspects of patient flow, and responding to pages when the clinician cannot take messages. Scribes must synthesize and cull the patient’s concerns, track the information relevant to the patient’s chief complaint, and accurately document the physical examination and assessment and plan as dictated by the clinician. This includes cogently summarizing complex patient presentations, verifying medications, and recording medical information with the electronic health record. Moreover, without sufficient background and orientation, merely observing a medical encounter can be a relatively superficial experience that yields little insight into the reality of practicing medicine.īy contrast, working as a scribe requires active involvement in patient encounters. Due to increasing regulation and concerns over HIPAA compliance and liability, however, establishing a connection with a physician or health care practice to find meaningful shadowing opportunities can be frustrating and challenging. Such shadowing experiences provide students with opportunities to ask questions and gain a basic understanding of what it means to practice medicine. Usually, this occurs in the form of shadowing, which involves following a physician for one or more days while the physician interviews patients, conducts physical examinations, and performs procedures. This commentary will also discuss the role of a scribe in the healthcare setting, the potential benefits of scribing for medical school graduates who wish to pursue residency training in a new country, and, from a clinician’s point of view, will explore the idea of scribing as an apprenticeship.įor aspiring medical students to acquire a clear understanding of the responsibilities, challenges, and daily proceedings of practicing physicians, firsthand experience with a physician is essential. In particular, this commentary will describe how the scribe experience has prepared us to work as part of a medical team, introduced us to pattern recognition as it relates to medical-decision-making, and spurred our personal and professional development. As current medical students and former scribes who are enrolled in the Penn State College of Medicine in the USA, we recall from our own experiences and from discussions with multiple former scribes the influence that scribing had on preparing us for medical school. Despite mounting evidence on the benefits of scribes for licensed clinicians, little attention has been given to the impact of the scribe experience for those who work as medical scribes, many of whom aspire to become medical doctors. Clinicians report that work with a scribe decreases work-related stress and improves their ability to multitask while increasing their workplace satisfaction and overall quality of life. Extensive research has shown scribes have a beneficial impact on revenue, patient satisfaction, length of stay, and workload distribution. In emergency departments, inpatient settings, urgent care, and other outpatient clinics, scribes facilitate efficient patient care by allowing clinicians to focus on patients rather than the clerical work associated with practicing medicine. Medical scribes are individuals who specialize in documenting patient health information in real time within an electronic health record (EHR) platform.
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