Family medicine
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Learners in medical education are often inadequately prepared to address the underlying social determinants of health and disease. The objective of this article is to describe the development, implementation, and evaluation of a Health Policy and Advocacy curriculum incorporated into our family medicine clerkship. ⋯ Training in health care policy and advocacy can be successfully implemented into a medical school curriculum with positive outcomes in students' self-reported knowledge and confidence in their abilities. Work remains on providing advocacy role models for students.
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Many factors influence a medical student's decision to choose a family medicine career. The impact of participation in extracurricular programs sponsored by family medicine departments is currently unclear. Medical student participation in four University of Washington Department of Family Medicine-sponsored programs (Community Health Advancement Program, Family Medicine Interest Group, Rural Underserved Opportunity Program, and the Underserved Pathway) could be associated with becoming a family physician. ⋯ Certain demographic factors and high initial interest in family medicine is associated with entering the specialty. Some, but not all, family medicine department-sponsored extracurricular programs were associated with choosing family medicine.
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Despite 21 million US adults having a disability, little is known about the types of disabilities among faculty in family medicine departments, accommodations used, or work limitations. ⋯ Most chairs did not report experience with faculty members with disabilities. The disabilities encountered and accommodations were not unusual, but costs were sometimes high. While about half of chairs reported adequate or superior job performance for their faculty with disabilities, a sizeable minority judged such faculty to have poorer performance than peers despite reporting wide acceptance of faculty with disabilities by patients and colleagues. This study raises concerns about potential underreporting by faculty with disabilities and poorer perceived job performance despite wide acceptance and provision of accommodations, sometimes at high cost.