Every summer in any academic teaching hospital is punctuated with a little bang on July 1st. The traditional start date for nervous interns, tired residents, and anxious fellows, the first of July is when hordes of well-educated, hard-working physicians descend upon hospitals for a period of their lives marked by intense learning, teaching, and taking care of patients.
It's a very interesting time in the hospital: those last few weeks of June and the early part of July. Because interns, residents, and fellows turn over relatively quickly (due to the length of their programs, usually between 1 and 7 years), many of the hospital staff (who often sport pins rewarding decades of service on their scrub uniforms) turn a jaundiced eye toward the flurry of activity before the Independence Day holiday.
At the end of the "academic" hospital year, trainees feel good about their knowledge and skills; they've finally discovered their comfort zone and how to get into it quickly. They know their own duties and the expectations of their attendings ("attendings" = the veteran doctors who supervise, instruct, and mentor - all while doing their own jobs as physicians) so well by June 30th that it becomes a little disheartening to see the calendar tick over to July 1, because that means starting over.
But it's also exciting, to move on, to finish, to start something new. For some, that just means another year out of many checked off on the torturous route to the finish line. For others, it means a new life of freedom and (hopefully) a salary that lingers above the minimum wage for once.
Often, around this time of year, the media turn their attentions to this transition time in the hospitals. The pendulum of public opinion swings back and forth regarding trainees and patient care. There are some who would never think to have their care anywhere but a "name brand" Ivy League-type hospital; others look distrustfully at the thought of being "practiced upon".
Even the so-called experts disagree. Some think that community hospitals (where there are only attendings, no trainees) provide better care for patients, while others think that academic institutions are safer or more effective.
As someone who has been in both worlds, I would be hard-pressed to issue a sweeping opinion. I know so many excellent physicians - and they're not all in academic institutions or all in community hospitals. If it were a matter of making a medical decision for my loved one, I would want them to have the absolute best care, of course. But the "best" depends on so many variables: the patient, the problem, the specialists, the procedures, the location, the aftercare...
Honestly, I think that all else being equal, this is a situation to go with your gut. Seriously. Perhaps the most important thing for patients is to be able to trust their doctors - and you can't do that unless you feel comfortable with them, their staff, their hospital - academic or not.
