Ringwald Bryce A, Banas David, Macerollo Allison, Bruce Ericka, Farrell Matthew
Family Medicine Residency Program, OhioHealth Riverside Methodist Hospital, Columbus, OH.
Department of Family and Community Medicine, The Ohio State University College of Medicine, Columbus, OH.
Fam Med. 2025 Jun;57(6):410-416. doi: 10.22454/FamMed.2025.306815. Epub 2025 May 20.
The family medicine clerkship has been found to influence medical students' decision-making regarding specialty choice. Understanding how the family medicine clerkship has changed over the past decade may assist in recruitment efforts. Our study explored trends in family medicine clerkship design, length, and format and correlated these characteristics with high proportions of medical school graduates choosing family medicine.
We performed a secondary analysis of the Council of Academic Family Medicine Educational Research Alliance annual family medicine clerkship director surveys from 2012 to 2023. We analyzed standard family medicine clerkship structure questions that were asked in each survey. We analyzed trends using Pearson's correlation coefficient test and correlations with χ2 test for independence.
Over the past 10 years, a transition from traditional block-style clerkships toward longitudinal-style clerkships has been increasing. Both block-style and longitudinal-style clerkships have decreased in length, with most clerkships lasting 4 weeks or less. A change also has taken place in the composition of clinical experiences, with reduced use of community preceptors as the primary source of clinical experiences. In 2021, schools with a higher percentage of students working with community preceptors were associated with higher percentages of medical students choosing to pursue family medicine.
Alterations in the family medicine clerkships have led to medical students getting decreased and intermittent exposure to family medicine. Most clerkship experiences are not with community preceptors, a major change following the COVID-19 pandemic. The repercussions of recent changes to the family medicine clerkship on the rate of matching medical students into family medicine remains unclear.
研究发现家庭医学实习会影响医学生在专业选择方面的决策。了解过去十年家庭医学实习的变化情况可能有助于招生工作。我们的研究探讨了家庭医学实习设计、时长和形式的趋势，并将这些特征与选择家庭医学的医学院毕业生的高比例相关联。
我们对学术家庭医学教育研究联盟理事会2012年至2023年的年度家庭医学实习主任调查进行了二次分析。我们分析了每次调查中提出的标准家庭医学实习结构问题。我们使用Pearson相关系数检验和独立性χ²检验分析趋势。
在过去10年中，从传统的集中式实习向纵向实习的转变一直在增加。集中式和纵向实习的时长都有所减少，大多数实习持续4周或更短时间。临床经验的构成也发生了变化，作为临床经验主要来源的社区带教教师的使用减少。2021年，学生与社区带教教师合作比例较高的学校，选择从事家庭医学的医学生比例也较高。
家庭医学实习的改变导致医学生接触家庭医学的机会减少且断断续续。大多数实习经历不是与社区带教教师一起，这是新冠疫情后的一个重大变化。家庭医学实习近期变化对医学生与家庭医学专业匹配率的影响尚不清楚。
