Family medicine clerkships are struggling to obtain and retain quality clinical training sites. Contributing factors include time constraints, competition for a limited number of training sites, physicians’ concerns about their ability to be effective teachers, physician burnout, and dated practice models that aren’t ideal training sites.1–4
STFM has agreed to be responsible for Family Medicine for America’s Health’s Workforce Education and Development Core Team’s task of identifying, developing, and disseminating resources for community preceptors.
STFM will hold a summit August 26–27, 2016 in Kansas City, Missouri to engage stakeholders to address the shortage of high-quality family medicine community preceptors. The 11/2-day summit will provide an opportunity to bring together those who understand the problem and have power to make change.
The Summit will be chaired by Beat Steiner, MD. The approximately 40 participants will include health system leaders, organizational representatives, clerkship directors, community preceptors, physicians who do not precept, students, etc.
Aims of the Summit Include
Decrease the percentage of allopathic family medicine clerkship directors who report difficulty finding clinical preceptor sites from 47% to 35% by 2020 (as measured by AAMC Report).
Increase the percentage of students completing clerkships at high-functioning sites (as measured by CERA surveys. Baseline will be determined in 2016).
Problems Summit Attendees Will Tackle
While there are several factors (drivers) contributing to the shortage of preceptors at high-functioning sites, summit participants will look first at addressing time and quality challenges (Table 1).
Table 1.
Time and Quality Challenges
| AIM | Primary Drivers to be Addressed | Secondary Drivers |
|---|---|---|
| Decrease the percentage of allopathic family medicine clerkship directors who report difficulty finding clinical preceptor sites from 47% to 35% by 2020 | Not enough time to precept | Time required for teaching; it’s estimated that having a student adds 30 minutes to a typical workday Additional time requirements have been placed on physicians due to EMRs and increasing administrative tasks Teaching has become more formal, bureaucratic, and complicated because of the demands of accrediting bodies and the organizations that employ physicians |
| Increase the percentage of students completing clerkships at high-functioning sites | Work involved in true primary care transformation | Practices don’t feel like they can take on students in the midst of transformation Students are completing clerkships at sites that are not offering comprehensive family medicine, are not patient centered, and/or have less-than-ideal family physician role models. |
What Attendees Will Do
Summit participants will reach consensus on which drivers to address and develop a plan to meet the aims. The plan will include:
A list of tasks that will be undertaken to address the drivers and meet the aims
Assignments (which organizations will do what)
Identified point persons for each task. These individuals will be responsible for regular communications with the STFM project lead and others, as needed
A timeline
Summit Funding
STFM and FMAHealth are seeking funding to support this FMAHealth Workforce Core Team activity. If not successful in acquiring funding, participating organizations will fund their own representatives and STFM will fund other invited guests (Chair, Clerkship Director, CEO, Community Preceptors, FPs who do not precept, etc) and pay for meeting expenses.
What Will Happen After the Summit
Organizations that have agreed to take on tasks will get necessary approvals from their Boards for the task(s) they’ve agreed to lead. They will submit work plans to an STFM Oversight Committee that will review the plans and provide feedback, if needed, to ensure they align with the project aims and don’t duplicate or interfere with the work of others involved in the plan implementation. The Oversight Committee will include STFM staff and 2 to 3 STFM members involved in medical student education. In addition to reviewing the plans, the committee will monitor the progress of the work, answer questions from point persons, and communicate with STFM members about the work being done.
References
- 1.Association of American Medical Colleges. Recruiting and maintaining U.S. clinical training sites: joint report of the 2013 multi-discipline clerkship/clinical training site survey. https://members.aamc.org/eweb/upload/13-225%20WC%20Report%202%20update.pdf Published 2014 Accessed Jan 26, 2015.
- 2.Laschinger Susan, MSc A, RN, Perkin Catherine., MScN, R Preceptors’ perspectives on recruitment, support, and retention of preceptors. J Nurs Educ. 2010;49(4):198. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
- 3.Vath BE, Schneeweiss R, Scott CS. Volunteer physician faculty and the changing face of medicine. West J Med. 2001;174(4):242–246. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
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