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Comment
. 2018 Sep 14;7(1):57.
doi: 10.1186/s13584-018-0254-8.

Influencing medical student choice of primary care worldwide: international application of the four pillars for primary care physician workforce

Amanda Weidner  1   2 , Ardis Davis  3   4
Affiliations
Comment

Influencing medical student choice of primary care worldwide: international application of the four pillars for primary care physician workforce

Amanda Weidner et al. Isr J Health Policy Res. .

Abstract

Primary care is a crucial part of a functional health care system, though in many parts of the world there are current or projected gaps in the primary care physician workforce. The academic family medicine organizations in the United States (US) developed the "Four Pillars for Primary Care Physician Workforce," a model built on decades of research, highlighting four main areas of emphasis for increasing primary care physician output: 1) pipeline; 2) process of medical education; 3) practice transformation; and 4) payment reform. This commentary proposes that this model, although developed in the US context, is applicable in other medical education settings, including Israel, based on the recently reported findings of Weissman and colleagues in this journal.

Keywords: Family medicine; International perspectives; Physician workforce; Primary care; Student specialty choice.

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Conflict of interest statement

Authors’ information

AD is the Executive Director of the Association of Departments of Family Medicine (ADFM) and AW is the Data and Special Projects Manager of the ADFM. The mission of the ADFM is to support academic departments of family medicine to lead and achieve their full potential in care, education, scholarship, and advocacy to promote health and health equity. Through the role of ADFM in Council of Academic Family Medicine, both AD and AW were integral to facilitating the development of the Four Pillars for Primary Care Physician Workforce Reform model and subsequent manuscripts. Both authors also work for the University of Washington Family Medicine Residency Network, a regional collaborative of 31 family medicine residency programs in five northwestern states of the US.

Ethics approval and consent to participate

Not applicable.

Consent for publication

Not applicable.

Competing interests

The authors declare that they have no competing interests.

Publisher’s Note

Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Comment on

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