The Morning-Report Syndrome and Medical Search

In many teaching hospitals around the country, the medical resident's morning report, presented to the department chairman or to his delegate, is the intellectual highlight of the day…Some of the rituals of the morning report are well established: new or problem cases are reviewed, a faculty member or the chief resident presides, and points are awarded for creative and original diagnoses and for the ability to recite all relevant literature — and the newer the literature, the better….However, insufficient attention is given to the patient's outcome, the humaneness of care rendered, or even the ultimate accuracy of the diagnosis. Even less attention is given to pointing out questions that are not resolved in the literature or to encouraging the pursuit of a clinical or laboratory research project designed to resolve such issues...

Read more in the New England Journal of Medicine