OBJECTIVE To determine whether rural family physicians thought they had received enough months of rural exposure during family medicine residency, how many months of rural exposure those who were satisfied with their training had had, and how many months of rural exposure those who were not satisfied with their training wanted. DESIGN Mailed survey. SETTING Rural Canada. PARTICIPANTS Rura...

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES Many family medicine educators feel that a required clinical rotation in family medicine has a positive influence on medical students' selection of family medicine residencies. We investigated the effect of a rural family medicine rotation on students' residency choices and examined the differences between a third-year and a fourth-year rotation. METHODS We surveyed ...

INTRODUCTION Minority populations, including those from rural areas, continue to be underrepresented in medical schools despite increased efforts to recruit them. Although family physicians are more highly represented in rural areas, and medical students from rural areas are more likely to return to rural areas, relatively few medical students enter the specialty of family medicine in the USA. ...

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES Physician workforce projections fuel interest in addressing the shortage of family physicians. Copious research has investigated personality as a variable influencing specialty intention. Medical school rural longitudinal integrated clerkships (LICs) nurture interest in family medicine. This study examined whether rural LIC students who intended to and eventually match...

Twenty percent of the US population lives in rural communities, but only about 9% of the nation's physicians practice in those communities. There is little doubt that the more highly specialized physicians are, the less likely they are to practice or settle in rural areas. There is clearly a population threshold below which it is not feasible for specialist (in contrast to generalist) physician...

PURPOSE The University of Missouri School of Medicine developed the Summer Community Program through which rising second-year medical students work alongside rural, community-based physician preceptors. This program is part of a comprehensive, longitudinal pipeline designed to increase student interest in rural practice. The authors describe the Summer Community Program, explain changes in stud...

OBJECTIVE To investigate the reasons for family medicine graduates' career choices. DESIGN Qualitative study using focus groups and one-on-one interviews. SETTING University of Calgary in Alberta. PARTICIPANTS Seventeen male and female second-year family medicine residents, representing a range of ages and areas of origin, enrolled in the 2004 urban and rural south streams of the family m...

BACKGROUND Recent decreases in the number of students entering family medicine has prompted reconsideration of what is known about the factors affecting specialty choice. METHODS Thirty-six articles on family medicine specialty choice published since 1993 were reviewed and rated for quality. RESULTS Rural background related positively and parents' socioeconomic status relates negatively to ...

BACKGROUND Sleep deprivation and fatigue are associated with long and irregular work hours. These work patterns are common to medical residents. Motor vehicle crashes (MVCs) are a leading cause of injury related deaths in Canada, with MVC fatality rates in rural areas up to three times higher than in urban areas. OBJECTIVES To: 1) examine the number of adverse motor vehicle events (AMVEs) in ...