Less Chairs Than Students

[JavadiCavity]

1. How are patients at your school scheduled for clinic?

2. Are there more students than available chairs?

3. What do students do that can't get a chair?

4. Do you have a problem with students scheduling "fake" appts. in order to hold a chair for a different patient? If a patient cancels, are students allowed to schedule a new patient for the same chair or do they have to give up the chair?

Any comments?

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[CalifSunshine]

These information are not readily available. You probably need to ask the junior and senior who have been in the clinic and are honest about their school system. In my school, the receptionist generally book the appointment but slowly they have been allowing students scheduling. There are more students than there are chair available. Scheduling patient and taking chair is first-come first-serve. If patient don't show up in set time (10 minutes), another student with a patient can take the chair. It is tough luck for students who don't have chair even they have patients. It is cruel just like in real world. It is sad that the school admit more students than they can handle.

 

[gryffindor]

For the amount of tuition some of you pay to go to these private schools, it is ridiculous for them to have not enough chairs and to make students fight for the chairs.

At my school, each student was assigned his/her own chair, and there were plenty of chairs left over. Students used to schedule their own appointments with the patients (1 patient in the morning, 1 patient in the afternoon).

 

[DrJeff]

Do you have a problem with students scheduling "fake" appts. in order to hold a chair for a different patient? If a patient cancels, are students allowed to schedule a new patient for the same chair or do they have to give up the chair?

Any comments?

This was my favorite one when I was in school, what was known as "phantom booking" - Basically you'd just book one of your patients into a specific clinic on a day when the preceptor you wanted to work with was there just to hold a spot with that preceptor as soon as that day becam available to book. Then you'd switch a patient into that day when it got closer or trade with a classmate for another favorable preceptor clinic slot.

The administration finally clamped down on this in a big way, where if it was found that you were phantom booking (and they had a very good idea of who was and watched over their patient scheduling) you were kicked out of all clinics for a week. Sounds harsh, but in the sense of fairness as just about anyone whose dealt with clinical faculty can attest to, certain faculty make the process much for efficient than others(typically part time faculty who have their own private practices verses the full time academics), and this knowledge of who to work with spreads quickly, and not every student should get the luxury of working with those desired fwe all the time.

 

[JavadiCavity]

Yeah, exactly DrJeff. We've got some of these "phantom bookings" going on, and a handful of students are demanding public hangings for the offenders. The administration wants to use the ethics committee to discipline guilty students. I think that's a bit harsh. I'm trying to get an idea of what is done at other schools. I think locking students out of the clinic for a week isn't a bad idea. We discussed that one briefly, but the students here didn't get too excited about it.

 

[DrJeff]

Yeah, exactly DrJeff. We've got some of these "phantom bookings" going on, and a handful of students are demanding public hangings for the offenders. The administration wants to use the ethics committee to discipline guilty students. I think that's a bit harsh. I'm trying to get an idea of what is done at other schools. I think locking students out of the clinic for a week isn't a bad idea. We discussed that one briefly, but the students here didn't get too excited about it.

Another simple way to deal with it from a policy side, and this was also used during my time in d-school AFTER the "phantom booking death penalty" of a week out of clinic was used on 1 student(that REALLY got everyones attention) was that if you canceled a patient visit in a specific clinic, you had to wait 24 hours before you as the student could rebook a chair in that clinic if no other chairs were available. This way your classmates had 1st access to that chair which was fair if it was during a time when a desireable preceptor was in clinic, and if it was a "real" cancelllation you could still have access to that clinic with another patient if the chair was still available. Not a perfect solution, but it basically put an end to phantom booking!

BTW, that "death penalty" sentence was determined by a student honor board after the accusations were made by various students AND the administration and both sides presented their cases.

 

[Mach band]

1. How are patients at your school scheduled for clinic?
Front desk or students. If new patients, it has to be done through front desk.

2. Are there more students than available chairs?
We have different ISO times. So it works out fine. There's always more chairs than the number of students assigned for the period. Most of time, extra chairs are taken because students open their ISO to see patients.

3. What do students do that can't get a chair?
If you have clinic time, there's chair assigned for you that period. When someone wants to open a chair for ISO time, if there's available chairs, the student will get it. If no chair is available, student will be put on a standby list similar to the standby list at the airport.

4. Do you have a problem with students scheduling "fake" appts. in order to hold a chair for a different patient?
I don't know if this happens. But we were told not to double-book patients. So I guess it must have happened in the past.

If a patient cancels, are students allowed to schedule a new patient for the same chair or do they have to give up the chair?
We are allowed to sign up for new patient visits or if you can get another patient in, that's fine too. I don't think there is any rules saying that we can't. But when there are students on standby list (with patients waiting to be seen), I think we'll be asked to give up our chairs.

Hope it helps.

 

[Sprgrover]

1. How are patients at your school scheduled for clinic?

2. Are there more students than available chairs?

3. What do students do that can't get a chair?

4. Do you have a problem with students scheduling "fake" appts. in order to hold a chair for a different patient? If a patient cancels, are students allowed to schedule a new patient for the same chair or do they have to give up the chair?

Any comments?

1. Here at Penn, students schedule and manage their own patients. We don't have any receptionists.

2. Yes, there are more students than chairs. We're guaranteed/assigned a chair 80% of the time. The other 20% you usually have to wait around about 15-30 minutes and see who has a cancelation. It also depends on which clinic group you're in and how the group leader manages things. For example, my group leader has a 'group huddle' every morning we're in clinic and we all state what we'll be doing that day. There's always someone with a last minute cancelation or an empty spot on their appointment book. Based on what is going on, he'll assign chairs. There's some preference for seniors, but a crown and bridge case will take priority over prophy or first visit, for example. Even if all chairs are taken in the group, generally there's an opening else where in the clinic. The school assigns chairs three months out (we have no control over this - so the issue of 'phantom booking' doesn't happen here), but if I don't have a patient to set in them they're taken away. For example, I know which chairs I'll be in tomorrow, but if my morning patient cancels on me again it's likely someone will take the chair from me.

3. People wait around a while to see if a chair becomes available, and one usually does. Worse comes to worse, you have to send the patient home and reschedule the appointment.

4. If a patient cancels, you're encouraged not to waste your time. You can either try to get someone else in your chair, if it's not too late, or you can sign up for emergency, go to endo and hang out for an emergency case there, catch up on lab work, and so on.

 

[TucsonDDS]

Here at Buffalo we all have our own chairs that we will keep during our two years in clinic. It is nice to know where you will be all the time. I don't know if any "phantom booking" is going on but it is a good idea that I hadn't thought of

 

[JavadiCavity]

Hmmm...some good ideas. Sounds like things are similar at schools with more students than chairs. The administration is calling a class meeting this Monday to discuss how they plan to address the issue. We'll see what the brass have come up with. Anyone else have any comments that might be useful?