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. 2019 Jul;34(7):1207-1212.
doi: 10.1007/s11606-019-04984-x. Epub 2019 Apr 8.

A National Survey of Internal Medicine Primary Care Residency Program Directors

Paul O'Rourke  1 , Eva Tseng  2 , Karen Chacko  3 , Marc Shalaby  4 , Anne Cioletti  5 , Scott Wright  6
Affiliations

A National Survey of Internal Medicine Primary Care Residency Program Directors

Paul O'Rourke et al. J Gen Intern Med. 2019 Jul.

Abstract

Background: The United States is facing a primary care physician shortage. Internal medicine (IM) primary care residency programs have expanded substantially in the past several decades, but there is a paucity of literature on their characteristics and graduate outcomes.

Objective: We aimed to characterize the current US IM primary care residency landscape, assess graduate outcomes, and identify unique programmatic or curricular factors that may be associated with a high proportion of graduates pursuing primary care careers.

Design: Cross-sectional study PARTICIPANTS: Seventy out of 100 (70%) IM primary care program directors completed the survey.

Main measures: Descriptive analyses of program characteristics, educational curricula, clinical training experiences, and graduate outcomes were performed. Bivariate and multivariate logistic regression analyses were used to determine the association between ≥ 50% of graduates in 2016 and 2017 entering a primary care career and program characteristics, educational curricula, and clinical training experiences.

Key results: Over half of IM primary care program graduates in 2016 and 2017 pursued a primary care career upon residency graduation. The majority of program, curricular, and clinical training factors assessed were not associated with programs that have a majority of their graduates pursuing a primary care career path. However, programs with a majority of program graduates entering a primary care career were less likely to have X + Y scheduling compared to the other programs.

Conclusions: IM primary care residency programs are generally succeeding in their mission in that the majority of graduates are heading into primary care careers.

Keywords: medical education-career choice; medical education-graduate; medical student and residency education; primary care; survey research.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare that they do not have a conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Distribution of NRMP- and non–NRMP-coded primary care programs according to the proportion of graduates pursuing a primary care career (including addiction medicine fellowship and geriatrics fellowship).
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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