• Lars Peterson, Zachary J Morgan, AndrillaC Holly ACHADepartment of Family Medicine, University of Washington School of Medicine, Seattle, WA., Samantha W Pollack, Randall Longenecker, David Schmitz, and Davis G Patterson.
• American Board of Family Medicine, Lexington, KY.
• Fam Med. 2023 Mar 1; 55 (3): 152161152-161.

Background And ObjectivesThe quality of training in rural family medicine (FM) residencies has been questioned. Our objective was to assess differences in academic performance between rural and urban FM residencies.MethodsWe used American Board of Family Medicine (ABFM) data from 2016-2018 residency graduates. Medical knowledge was measured by the ABFM in-training examination (ITE) and Family Medicine Certification Examination (FMCE). The milestones included 22 items across six core competencies. We measured whether residents met expectations on each milestone at each assessment. Multilevel regression models determined associations between resident and residency characteristics milestones met at graduation, FMCE score, and failure.ResultsOur final sample was 11,790 graduates. First-year ITE scores were similar between rural and urban residents. Rural residents passed their initial FMCE at a lower rate than urban residents (96.2% vs 98.9%) with the gap closing upon later attempts (98.8% vs 99.8%). Being in a rural program was not associated with a difference in FMCE score but was associated with higher odds of failure. Interactions between program type and year were not significant, indicating equal growth in knowledge. The proportions of rural vs urban residents who met all milestones and each of six core competencies were similar early in residency but diverged over time with fewer rural residents meeting all expectations.ConclusionsWe found small, but persistent differences in measures of academic performance between rural- and urban-trained FM residents. The implications of these findings in judging the quality of rural programs are much less clear and warrant further study, including their impact on rural patient outcomes and community health.

18 keywords...

hide…