![]() ![]() ![]() To our knowledge, no studies have addressed the utility of medical scribing as a modality to prepare preclinical students for clinical clerkships. There is little investigation on preclinical (i.e., M1 or M2) incorporation of scribing in medical education. All of the reported literature analyzed the impact on third- and fourth-year medical students or individuals prior to medical school. Given the clinical training as well as intensive exposure to medical decision making involved, it is easy to envision how former scribes may have an advantage compared to peers in terms of navigating the medical system. Scribes who were applying to medical school reported that they learned medical terminology, observed communication between the doctor and patient, and understood the practice of medicine in a clinical setting. Furthermore third- and fourth-year medical students functioning as scribes had greater teaching focus, contributions to a teamwork culture, and service as an EHR resource. Scribes in the emergency department as well as medical students in their clinical years have stated scribing is an overall positive experience that enhances engagement, physician feedback, and fosters a more team-based culture. This productivity is realized as decreased documentation time and increased work productivity as measured by clinical revenue. Numerous studies show scribes improving patient experience and satisfaction, clinical satisfaction, and increasing productivity. Prior to initiating their work, scribes are trained in medical record navigation, documentation techniques, and medical terminology. The traditional role of medical scribes includes observing and documenting medical encounters in real-time. The implementation of scribing in medical education may address the clinical documentation learning by allowing the scribe to actively participate by charting the physician-patient encounter instead of passively listening. A now growing student population with a truncated preclinical time and less in-person didactic education faces a steep learning curve entering clinical years, balancing responsibilities to patient care alongside sufficient clinical documentation. Furthermore, depending on its structure the flipped classroom sessions may require more faculty resources for small group learning and can be negatively impacted by inadequate levels of students’ preparedness. However, students have raised concerns over the time intensiveness of outside preparation without the ability to ask questions in real time or access faculty support with overly complex subject matter. The incorporation of a flipped-classroom model, another significant change to medical education in which students are exposed to new material outside the classroom, ideally replaces hours of traditional lectures with condensed sessions in which students are asked to actively apply material with higher level cognitive work. Recent changes in the United States include a trend toward shortened preclinical time prior to entering the traditional clinical years. The time saved by the preceptor needs to be further investigated to determine if the time can lend itself towards better patient care, student-specific feedback, focused teaching, or even mentoring. When summing the per encounter time savings over the course of a half or full clinic day, scribing can return a significant amount of time back to preceptors. Medical scribing can be a tool to further develop medical trainees in clinical documentation and help prepare them for the responsibilities during clinical years. ![]() Our study demonstrated that preceptors for scribe students reported a significant decrease in documentation time compared to non-scribes ( Mdiff = − 5.75, p = .02), with no negative impact on patient satisfaction. There was no significant difference between the scribe and non- scribe students in their confidence documenting a patient encounter or navigating EMR (all p > .05). We surveyed students, preceptors, and patients during the project to better understand confidence around documentation, the EMR, and the impact of the scribing program on workflow efficiency and patient satisfaction. A small cohort of medical students were trained in medical scribing within our institutions’ existing preclinical preceptorship program. This study sought to investigate how a structured medical scribing program in an outpatient clinic helps bridge the gap between traditional preclinical and clinical curricula in medical education. With the trend toward reduction in preclinical medical education, students now have fewer opportunities to optimize their note-writing and overall clinical skills before transitioning to patient-care settings. Medical students matriculating from their preclinical curriculum into clinical clerkships face a significant learning curve when using an electronic medical record (EMR) system for clinical documentation. ![]()
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