The house call in residency training and its relationship to future practice

The aging of the population makes education in geriatrics vital to family practice residents, including training in house calls. This study examined the relationship of house call training in residency with current house call practices of recent graduates of family practice residencies. A questionnaire mailed to a random national sample of 301 family physicians who completed residency training between 1981 and 1986 obtained a 66% response rate with three mailings. House calls were not required in the curriculum for 80% of respondents, 30% never did house calls in residency, and 55% recognized they were not well trained in house calls. Graduates of programs in which faculty made house calls and those in which residents made house calls on a longitudinal basis were significantly more likely to offer house calls in their practices. This suggests that resident education can offer positive experiences in house call training to encourage future physicians to include house calls in their practices.