Physician experience and outcomes among patients admitted to general internal medicine teaching wards

An excerpt on the front cover of the October 6 CMAJ states, "More physician experience does not mean more negative outcomes." In fact the referenced article showed the opposite, a 1.2% absolute reduction in the rather immutable endpoints of in hospital and 30 day death plus readmission rates, when comparing the highest vs the lowest quartile of physician experience. While the odds ratio of 0.88% was not statistically significant, most laypersons who had these results explained to them would want to be looked after by the most experienced internist they could find. Me too.

A more reflective summary would have been: given the high standard for doctor licensing in our country, lack of experience is not a detrimental as might have been expected.

Conflict of Interest:

None declared