Medical student teaching in the preclinical years: a national family medicine survey.

We surveyed teaching by departments of family medicine at American medical schools during the preclinical period of their programs. Ninety-seven percent of departments responded to our questionnaire. Eighty-five percent participate in at least one required preclinical medical school course. The course title most frequently mentioned was "Introduction to Clinical Medicine," and the most frequent content areas with some department of family medicine responsibility were interviewing, physical diagnosis, and the physician-patient relationship. Departments from schools with a four-year enrollment of less than 300 are more likely to participate in at least one required course, but we found no other differences based on size of medical school enrollment, geographic region, or public v. private status. In conjunction with the current period of national reassessment regarding American medical education, now is a good time to evaluate department of family medicine medical student teaching, fill in gaps, and implement new programs for the next phase of our development as an academic specialty.