Student and Resident Involvement in Family Medicine for America's Health A Step Toward Leadership Development

Trainees-medical students and residents-are an important constituency of family medicine. The Family Medicine for America's Health (FMAHealth) Workforce Education and Development (WED) Tactic Team attempted to engage trainees in FMAHealth objectives via a nationally accessible leadership development program. We discuss a how-to mechanism to develop similar models, while highlighting areas for improvement.

The Student and Resident Collaborative recruited a diverse group of trainees to comprise five teams: student choice of family medicine, health policy and advocacy, burnout prevention, medical student education, and workforce diversity. An early-career physician mentored team leaders and a resident served as a liaison between the Collaborative and WED Team. Each team established its own goals and objectives. A total of 36 trainees were involved with the Collaborative for any given time.

Including trainees in a national initiative required special considerations, from recruitment to scheduling. Qualitative feedback indicated trainees valued the leadership development and networking opportunities. The experience could have been improved by clearly defining how trainees could impact the broader FMAHealth agenda. To date, the Collaborative has produced a total of 17 conference presentations and four manuscripts.

Although trainees felt improvement in leadership skills, more robust trainee involvement in FMAHealth core teams would have made the leadership initiative stronger, while simultaneously improving sustainability among family medicine and primary care reform strategies. Nonetheless, the unique structure of the Collaborative facilitated involvement of diverse trainees, and some trainee involvement should be integrated into any future strategic planning.