Article Text
Abstract
Background: Medical microbiology practice encompasses a diverse range of activities. Consultant medical microbiologists (CMMs) attribute widely differing priorities to, and spend differing proportions of time on various components of the job.
Aim: To obtain a professional consensus on what are high-priority and low-priority activities, and to identify the time spent on low-priority activities.
Method: National survey.
Results: Many respondents felt that time spent on report authorisation and telephoning of results was excessive, whereas time spent on ward-based work was inadequate. Timesaving could also be achieved through better prioritisation of infection-control activities.
Conclusion: CMMs should apportion their time at work focusing on high-priority activities identified through professional consensus.
- CMM, consultant medical microbiologist
- DGH, district general hospital
- DICP, Director of Infection Control and Prevention
- GP, general practitioner
- ICD, infection control doctor
- ICU, intensive care unit
- wte, whole time equivalent
Statistics from Altmetric.com
Footnotes
-
Published Online First 19 May 2006
-
Competing interests: None declared.