A classification of developmental activities of academic family medicine supported by federal grants.

Substantial funds have been awarded to academic departments of family medicine through the federal Establishment of Departments of Family Medicine grants program, initiated in 1980 under the Public Health Service Act. In 1989 the authors analyzed the successful grant applications in a sample of 61 institutions variously funded or re-funded for the grant cycles from 1980 through 1986 in order to classify the supported developmental activities. Three dimensions for explicating this activity emerged: (1) the functional area of the activity (e.g., curricular development); (2) the objectives of the activity (e.g., improving relevance of instruction); and (3) the strategies to be used to attain the objectives (e.g., addition of specialized faculty). This classification scheme provides a tentative but useful framework for characterizing departmental development.