Practice,practice, practice-will current house officers have time to do that?

What do some cognitive scientists and the folks who teach you how to take a test (Stanley Kaplan et al) have in common? Answer- a belief in the power of practice and challenges just beyond one's level of competence.

The August 6, 2006 Issue of Scientific American has an interesting article by Phillip S. Ross entitled "The Expert Mind".

It discusses studies that have been done regarding master chess players ( who might be considered the Drosophila of the cognitive scientists) and how they approach and solve chess problems. Novices spend more time analyzing various possible moves than masters who quickly narrow the alternatives down apparently without consciously considering all of them.

Are the masters born or made? The author argues that they are made. The entire article should be read to review the evidence he presents.

"Effortful study" and Practice, Practice, practice with exposure to increasingly difficult problems is the key.What seems important is "challenges just beyond one's competence". To a medical student just beginning the clinical years, just about everything is beyond their competence.

It takes time. He quotes one cognitive scientist who believes it takes about ten years to become an expert.In the "old days" a internist who did specialty training did in fact about ten years total
training although some only took nine years.

Before Stanley Kaplan proved otherwise it was believed that the S.A.T. was an aptitude test. He showed one could be coached to improve one' s S.A.T.score and made a career of that. A key to that improvement was practice ( and of course, knowing what type of problems you would face and therefore be able to practice their solution)

I wonder if the current generation of internal medicine house officers will have enough time in their training to practice enough.With my generation's training (graduation in 1965) we had more time.Counting my two years of pulmonary fellowship, it was ten years from the year I entered medical school.Now someone can complete the IM program ( assuming no fellowship) in as little as 7 years from med school entry. In addition, there is less time per week with the current rules limiting time in the hospital and more material placed into the training requirements that takes away from doctor patient time ( e.g. quality training, cultural competency and my favorite "systems based practice").

One of my former partners in a large internal medicine clinic is convinced the level of clinical expertise in regard to general medicine problems is much greater in those docs who have had specialty training than those "general" internists who have had only 3 years post med school training and not just in their specialty but in general IM matters as well. Maybe the three year trainees need more practice.