Does Training Matter? Attending Physicians’ Core Clinical Skills Do Not Appear to Be Any Better Than Those of Their Residents

Considerable resources are put into training physicians to be effective providers after residency. Practicing physicians are generally assumed to be more effective and more efficient than resident physicians who are still undergoing training. We capitalize on a unique opportunity to test that hypothesis using the controlled methodology of Unannounced Standardized Patients (USPs), Standardized Patients sent into clinical environments to systematically assess provider skills in the context of a standardized clinical scenario. In this study, we report on comparisons between how these attending physicians performed in terms of their patient centeredness, patient activation, assessment, and communication skills in comparison to residents.