Changes in the Shortage and Quality of Family Medicine Clinical Training Sites

This study examined changes over time in the shortage and quality of clinical training sites for students. The surveys provided baseline and milestone measurements for the Society of Teachers of Family Medicine's (STFM) Preceptor Expansion Initiative.

Data were gathered in 2016 and again in 2020, through the Council of Academic Family Medicine's (CAFM) Educational Research Alliance (CERA) survey of family medicine clerkship directors. Clerkship directors answered questions concerning number of students requiring placement, number of precepting sites used, frequency of negative comments about family medicine as a specialty, and about opportunities for students to experience comprehensive care, patient-centered care, and document in electronic health records.

The number of students who annually required placement at family medicine preceptor sites increased slightly from 2016 to 2020, but the number of sites utilized per family medicine department did not. There were no changes in the percentage of sites having Patient-Centered Medical Home or similar recognition or providing comprehensive care with or without obstetrics. However, more students were allowed to enter data and write patient encounter notes in 2020 than in 2016.

Clerkship directors continue to struggle to find high-quality family medicine training sites for students. STFM's Preceptor Expansion Initiative has made strides to help students become active, productive members of care teams, to reduce the administrative burden of teaching, and to promote the precepting of multiple students at once.1 These efforts to incentivize precepting are ongoing, but won't be enough to compensate for the rapid growth in the number of students and the increasing demands on physicians for high-volume patient care.