Housestaff use of medical references in ambulatory care.

We surveyed medical house officers at the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center during their ambulatory rotations about their utilization of reference materials, assessing such factors as frequency, the mode of reference, and specific choice of resources. The collected data were significantly illustrative of the shift from paper-based resources to digital references. These findings confirm that availability should be of utmost priority when designing references for physicians in training.