The Effect of Teaching Family Medicine Clerkship Students on Preceptor Productivity

High-quality, experiential learning in outpatient settings is indispensable for medical student education; however these settings are difficult to recruit and retain. The majority of primary care physicians are employed by organizations and are under pressure to increase their relative value unit (RVU) production. Although the common perception that teaching medical students decreases productivity is unproven, it is likely a barrier for primary care physicians pursuing clinical teaching. We sought to investigate whether medical student teaching affects clinical productivity.

We recruited 15 family medicine (FM) clerkship sites to participate in our study via email and at an in-person meeting. For each preceptor, we collected billing data in the form of current procedural terminology (CPT) codes for all patient encounters and the number of patients seen per half-day for when the preceptor had a student and when they did not. We converted CPT codes to RVU data. We compared differences in productivity for each individual preceptor, and we used a paired t test to examine collective data with and without a student.

Ten preceptors at six FM clerkship sites provided reliable data. The average RVU per half-day without a student was 10.84, and it was slightly higher at 11.25 when a student was present (P=.74). The average number of patients seen per half-day without a student was 8.32 and it was slightly lower at 7.87 when a student was present (P=.58).

This study shows promising data that teaching students in the outpatient setting does not decrease preceptor productivity. This pilot study can lead to a larger-scale exploration of family medicine preceptor productivity in different settings and institutions.