A comparison of university and community-based family practice physician educators

Differences in satisfaction with training and perceived preparation for practice have been observed among residents trained in community and university family practice residency programs. Our study was undertaken to determine the degree to which faculty training, experience, or practice patterns may contribute to these different resident experiences.

Questionnaires addressing prior training, experience, current practice content, motivation for entering academic medicine, and satisfaction with current teaching position were sent to full-time physician faculty at 60 family practice residency programs.

The 208 faculty responses showed no differences in faculty at various types of residency programs with respect to demographic factors, prior training, or past experience. Only small differences were found in the proportion of time devoted to most professional activities or in the content of clinical practice.

Few differences were found between faculty at university- and community-based family practice residency programs. This implies that differences in residents' perceptions of training may be due to other factors, such as institutional philosophy or self-selection. However, qualitative differences in family practice faculty activities that were not measured in this research cannot be ruled out as factors influencing residents' perceptions of their training experiences.