Family medicine
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Students interested in a family medicine residency often seek advice about what electives to take in their final year of medical school. This study sought to develop a consensus about what rotations to recommend and what essential skills students should possess before starting their family medicine residency. ⋯ Experienced family medicine educators appear to agree that students benefit most from a few specific rotations during the final year of medical school. This information may be useful to faculty members who advise students during medical school.
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This study was conducted to examine factors used by medical students to select a primary care specialty that may differentiate students who choose the primary care specialties of family medicine, internal medicine, pediatrics, and combined internal medicine-pediatrics. ⋯ The most important reasons for choice of specialty were similar for all primary care specialties and related to congruence between the graduate and the physicians in the specialty or the process of providing care within that specialty. The factors that differentiated the four specialties related to the content of the specialty.
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Despite inclusion of Balint training in US family medicine residency programs, little research exists about the effectiveness of this training in improving residents' behavioral medicine skills. This study compared the outcomes for residents who did and did not undergo Balint training to increase residents' psychological medicine skills in two rural training programs. ⋯ Balint training enhances the levels of residents' self-reported psychological medicine skills, when compared to standard behavioral medicine curriculum for first- and second-year family medicine residents.