Director's Message

There is an urgent need to reimagine the modern clinical encounter to ensure that it meets the needs of patients, clinicians and healthcare systems. This brings with it an equally urgent need to redesign the way that we teach and assess clinical skills. The Center for Bedside Medicine will lead this revitalization of the clinical encounter for 21st-century medicine.

Today, changes in workflow — necessitated by duty hours, regulations, the electronic health record and financial constraints — have decreased the time clinicians spend with patients. This decrease has coincided with a decline in bedside clinical skills and a corresponding rise in medical errors. There has also been an alarming increase in stress and burnout among healthcare providers, as clinicians spend more time interacting with the electronic health record than with actual individuals. At the same time, technology has fundamentally changed the landscape of the "bedside," creating unique opportunities. Point-of-care devices such as handheld ultrasounds and digital stethoscopes have increased the ability to make diagnoses in real time and to connect bedside physical findings to pathophysiology. Furthermore, artificial intelligence has the potential to further alter the patient-physician relationship and the diagnostic process by improving communication, documentation, and data interpretation.

The Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine is ideally suited to be the home of the center. Talented faculty and learners from across the entire university will provide a fertile environment for innovation and creativity. Chicago is a national hub for medical education with headquarters for organizations such as the AMA, ACGME, ACCME and ABMS. The city is an ideal central meeting place to convene thought leaders in medical education and to host national and international conferences to advance the center’s mission and vision.

We invite you to learn more about our initiatives through our website. Please consider supporting our work and reach out to us if you have questions. 

Brian T. Garibaldi, MD, MEPH
Director, Center for Bedside Medicine
Charles Horace Mayo Professor
Professor of Pulmonary & Critical Care in the Department of Medicine