Family practice and internal medicine clinical judgment in a university setting

There were no significant differences between family practice and internal medicine residents in the proportion of total diagnoses that were reasonable (72 percent and 77 percent, respectively) and unreasonable (14 percent and 15 percent, respectively) or average number of consultations requested per examination (.15 and .16, respectively). There was a significant difference between the two types of physicians in the average number of laboratory tests requested per examination (1.42 per family practice and 1.88 per internal medicine) and average number of x-ray examinations requested per examination (0.35 for family practice and 1.02 for internal medicine). The average length of examination for internal medicine tended to be longer than for family practice. Although generalizability of this study is limited, the results suggest that there may be important differences in the practice patterns of family practice and internal medicine with implications for training programs.