Medical student and faculty perceptions of desirable primary care teaching site characteristics.

BACKGROUND: As the need to expand and improve primary care teaching experiences has mushroomed, the need to identify desirable preceptor and site characteristics has also grown. PURPOSE: The current study was designed to assess the relative importance students and preceptors place on site versus preceptor characteristics. METHODS: After a required year-long primary care experience, third-year medical students (n=39) and primary care preceptors (n=20) completed a Q-sort exercise. RESULTS: In all analyses preceptor characteristics were ranked highest. The highest ranked item for students and preceptors was 'The preceptor allows student to assume increasing levels of responsibility'. Seven of the highest ranked items appear on both groups' top 10 list. CONCLUSIONS: There is a high level of agreement between students and preceptors that preceptor rather than site characteristics make the vital difference in primary care educational experiences. When students and preceptors disagree, it is because preceptors see their role- modelling characteristics related to relationships with patients as important, while students are more interested in the hands-on learning opportunities afforded by the preceptor.

Effect of a year-long primary care clerkship on graduates' selection of family practice residencies.

This report compares the selection of family practice residencies from 1981 through 1989 by graduates trained at two campuses of the State University of New York (SUNY)-Health Science Center at Syracuse College of Medicine, at other New York State campuses, and at all U.S. medical schools. One of the SUNY-Syracuse cohorts comprised the students who had completed all their work at the Syracuse campus, while the other comprised those who had spent their third year at the campus in Binghamton, which has a year-long, half-day-a-week primary care clerkship that is not available at the Syracuse campus, which has no primary care clerkship. Comparison of the proportions of the graduates in the two SUNY-Syracuse cohorts who chose family practice residencies, and comparisons of the proportions of graduates from other New York state schools and from all U.S. schools who selected family practice residencies during the same nine-year period, indicate that the proportion of students trained during their third year at the Binghamton campus who selected family practice residencies was significantly greater (21%; p less than .001). Additional investigation is required to determine whether the year-long nature of the required clerkship affects graduates' choices more than does the primary care content of the clerkship.