Does teaching by family physicians in the second year of medical school increase student selection of family practice residencies?

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES

Most educators feel that early instruction by family physician teachers increases the probability of students selecting family practice residencies.

METHODS

To examine this hypothesis, a retrospective cohort study was performed to evaluate residency selection of students who received their second-year Introduction to Clinical Medicine (ICM) teaching either from family physicians or other specialists (most commonly, internists).

RESULTS

For the 971 students who could be followed to residency, 13.6% of those having family physicians as instructors and 15.7% of those having other specialists as instructors chose family practice residencies. The difference is not significant.

CONCLUSION

It is probable that the effect of having a family physician as a second-year ICM instructor is not significant enough to be detected by a study of this size and is simply "washed out" by other factors. It is also possible that no positive effect of second-year teaching by family physicians on residency selection exists.