Specifying student-patient encounters, web-based case logs, and meeting standards of the liaison committee on medical education.

Standard ED-2 of the Liaison Committee on Medical Education (LCME) requires medical schools to specify the types of patients that students should encounter, the student's level of responsibility, and the appropriate setting for the encounter. The authors describe the process at Joan and Sanford I. Weill Medical College of Cornell University in New York City for meeting this standard through the development of a Web-based case log. The log permits the medical college to specify expectations for patient encounters and allows the students to record their encounters in an efficient, brief, and user-friendly manner. By downloading the student's reports directly into a database, the medical college can track successes and deficiencies in the student's clinical experiences. However, in response to a questionnaire administered in 2005, students generally expressed dissatisfaction with the case logs, which they described as intrusive busywork.