Promoting Student Interest in Family Medicine Through National Conference Attendance.

INTRODUCTION: The University of South Dakota Sanford School of Medicine (USDSSOM) had success in preparing students to enter family medicine. A sharp decline in students choosing the specialty became noticeable in 2004. In 2005, only 10.2% of the graduating class entered family medicine residency programs. To reverse this trend, the Department of Family Medicine partnered with the South Dakota Academy of Family Physicians (SDAFP) chapter that year to send students to the American Academy of Family Physicians (AAFP) National Conference of Family Medicine Residents and Medical Students. This report examines the influence of national conference attendance on career choice. While many factors influence student choice, conference attendance served as an additive method for recruitment. METHODS: Internal departmental records on national conference attendance and subsequent National Resident Matching Program (NRMP) data were reviewed retrospectively, to determine if a correlation existed between conference attendance and choice of family medicine as a specialty. Chi-squared analysis was utilized to further examine this relationship. RESULTS: The association between conference attendance and number of times attending is significant (χ2 =6.78, P<.05). The recent data show that this intervention has resurrected student interest in family medicine, with USDSSOM now exceeding the NRMP average for family medicine. CONCLUSIONS: A positive correlation exists between national conference attendance and medical student choice to enter family medicine residency programs. This intervention may be used by more medical schools wishing to promote family medicine in order to help meet our nation's primary care workforce needs.

Medical education through community experience: an update on the community research projects at the USDSM Sioux Falls Campus.

Community Research Projects are a requirement and an integral part of the year long, ambulatory third-year course in Sioux Falls, SD, called Primary Care Ambulatory Program (PCAP). Since 1997, this community research project has sought to increase a student's understanding of a community health issue by allowing the student to pose and answer a research question, while providing some type of service or education to the targeted community. Projects at all three clinical campuses were previously featured in the June 2001, issue of the South Dakota Journal of Medicine. This report is an update on the activities and progress of the community research projects at the Sioux Falls campus since that initial report.