Family medicine
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To achieve overall health, physicians must understand how community and population health impacts individual health. Although several US medical schools have incorporated community health assessment project requirements into traditional curricula, examples in longitudinal integrated clerkships are unknown. This study was designed to assess alumni perceptions of the influence of community health assessment projects, a core component of the University of Minnesota Rural and Metropolitan Physician Associate Program's (RPAP/MetroPAP) 9-month longitudinal integrated curriculum. ⋯ This exploratory study suggests medical student community health assessment projects enhance community engagement and soliciting project ideas from community partners increases student acquisition of community engagement skills.
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Graduate medical education (GME) determines the composition and distribution of the physician workforce in the United States. Federal and state governments heavily subsidize GME but in most cases do not tie subsidies to national or state physician workforce goals. As a result, GME sponsoring institutions (eg, teaching hospitals, schools of medicine, federally qualified health centers) decide how many and what type of physicians to train. The objective of this study was to better understand the factors that influence decision-making by sponsoring institutions. ⋯ Unless and until the incentives for sponsoring institutions are strongly aligned with national and state physician workforce priorities based on public need, progress on creating a more balanced physician workforce will not occur.
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Scholarly activity (SA) is an Accreditation Council of Graduate Medical Education (ACGME) requirement for family medicine residents. Engaging residents in scholarly activity can be challenging. Naval Hospital Jacksonville Family Medicine Residency (NHJ) pioneered a curriculum that led to a dramatic, sustained increase in resident SA. We sought to implement the curriculum in other family medicine residency programs. ⋯ The curriculum was implemented in two additional residencies with promising results. We recommend further implementation across multiple sites to determine the extent to which the results are generalizable.
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Nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) are one of the most commonly used pain medications among US adults with about 70 million people regularly taking NSAIDs annually. Despite clear recommendations from current clinical practice guidelines and recent supporting literature, NSAIDs are continually prescribed inappropriately in patients with chronic kidney disease (CKD), hypertension (HTN), and heart failure (HF). The purpose of this project was to determine the impact of direct pharmacist-led education to providers on rates of inappropriate prescribing of NSAIDs in high-risk populations in a family medicine setting. ⋯ A single pharmacist-led education intervention to primary care providers on inappropriate NSAID use in high-risk patient populations had a significant impact on minimizing inappropriate NSAID prescribing patterns within a family medicine outpatient office.
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Research shows that limited time, lack of funding, difficulty identifying mentors, and lack of technical support limit resident and faculty ability to fully participate in scholarly activity. Most research to date focuses on medical student and resident attitudes toward research. This study aimed to understand the underlying attitudes of family medicine residency (FMR) leaders toward scholarship. ⋯ Emerging themes illustrate differences in how FMR program leaders perceive the role of scholarship in residency programs. As programs aim to increase research and scholarship, more attention must be paid to the motivating messages communicated by the program's leadership.