Scribes Document Emergency Treatment

Pre-med students get a feel for medical practice.

By Nancy Giguere, Star Tribune Sales and Marketing

Last update: October 12, 2009 - 12:10 PM

In the emergency department (ED), the pace is rapid and the patients are often in serious condition. For physicians and nurse practitioners, the need to enter information into the electronic medical record can get in the way of patient care.

Wingmen For Providers

To solve this problem and allow providers to focus on patients, Emergency Care Consultants, the group that staffs the ED at Abbott Northwestern Hospital (www.abbottnorthwestern. com), created a physician scribe program. "We're like wingmen for the provider," says Ann Konrardy, a scribe who also coordinates the program. "We accompany the provider into the patient's room and enter the provider's dictated notes into a computer on wheels."

The scribe records the patient's medical history, the reason for the visit and the results of the physical exam. The scribe also enters the results of diagnostic tests, along with the details of consultations with other providers and the patient's response to medical interventions. In addition, the scribe helps providers keep track of the patient in the ED.

The Best Pre-Med Job

All scribes are either pre-med students or recent graduates who are planning to attend medical school. Scribes receive eight shifts of training during which they learn the basics of charting. Part-time scribes commit to working a minimum of eight shifts a month for two consecutive years. Full-time scribes commit to a minimum of 18 shifts a month for one year. Scribes work with the same doctor for an entire eight-hour shift, but they're usually assigned to several different doctors in the course of a month.

"It's absolutely the best pre-med job," Konrardy says. "It gives you a leg up for medical school because you learn so much just from being in the hospital environment. Working as a scribe has definitely reaffirmed my decision to go to medical school."

Learn more about the program www.eccpa.org /Scribes/index.html.

Nancy Giguere is a freelance writer from St. Paul who has written about healthcare since 1995.

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