Clinical experience of medical students in model family practices and private family practices.

The clinical experience of 21 Duke medical students during their family medicine clerkship is analyzed to compare experience in model family practices with that in private family practices. In model practices where 50 percent of the time involved patient care, students saw an average of 41 different patients for 45 encounters and 73 problem contacts during the month. In private practices with 100 percent time devoted to patient care, students saw 140 patients for 193 encounters and 346 problem contacts during the month. Most patients were seen in the physician office in both sites (89.0 percent model and 70.4 percent private), but fewer were seen as hospital inpatients in the model than in the private practices (6.3 vs 25.7 percent). The types of patient problems were alike, with the same 11 problems ranking in the top 15 most frequently seen in the two locations. The major difference in experience relates to the larger volume of patients and problems encountered in the private than in the model sites.