Do acting interns need residents? A comparison of acting intern experience on hospital medicine resident versus nonresident teams

Background: The clinical demands for hospitalist groups have grown at academic medical centers, without similar growth of teaching opportunities for faculty. Traditional resident teaching teams are often crowded with learners which can limit acting intern (or subintern) patient encounters. Medical students are often placed on nonresident teaching teams, although there are few studies on learner experience on a nonresident teaching team model. Methods: To address these concerns, we created two nonresident teaching teams composed of one attending and two acting interns. We compared acting intern experience on the nonresident teaching teams to the traditional resident teams to determine if there were significant differences in student experience by reviewing course evaluation data on the two team models. Results: Of the 276 students who completed the Internal Medicine Acting Internship from 2019 to 2023, 224 students (81%) completed the course evaluation. The course was highly rated, and the ratings were similar in both models demonstrating that the nonresident teaching team model is an effective option for acting interns. Conclusion: The nonresident teaching team model can offload crowded teaching teams, add additional acting intern experiences, and add teaching opportunities for hospital medicine attendings.