A consortium, graduate medical education, and Buffalo: defining a common ground

Regional graduate medical education (GME) consortia are a strategy to align public support for GME with societal goals. One such consortium was established in Buffalo, NY, to pool financial resources, facilitate processing of Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education requirements, guarantee quality education, and more appropriately use community resources. Cooperation has attracted external funding from state and federal governments and private foundations, fostering community-wide undergraduate medical education, as well as GME. The American Association of Medical Colleges has identified 36 GME consortia in the United States. New York may lead the nation on a strategy to use consortia for the distribution of all state-appropriated GME support. The relationships fostered by consortial interactions have benefitted family medicine and provided opportunities for leading regional medical education into a primary care-specialty balanced future.