When family practice residents are parents: effect on in-training examination scores

This study examines the effect of parenthood on family practice residents' knowledge of pediatrics by evaluating their performance on the pediatric portion of the American Board of Family Practice in-training examination. The 1986 examination results for five Army family practice residencies were obtained. A faculty member at each program noted on the test report whether or not each of 109 residents had children at the time of the exam. Overall, residents with children had slightly higher scores than those without children on the pediatric portion of the in-training examination. The exception was the PGY1 group where residents with children scored markedly lower than those residents without children. However, none of these differences were statistically significant. Although these results do not refute the possibility of special insight possessed by physicians who are also parents, these physicians do not appear to have any particular advantage on written tests over residents without children.