Community-based medical education is key to training physicians to work in needy fields such as outpatient care and health care for the medically underserved. Describes the disadvantages of traditional medical school curricula and presents sample community health curricula now being used. Suggests ways to increase medical students' awareness of…

The objectives of this preliminary study were to evaluate the feasibility and acceptability of using trained simulated patient instructors (N=6) as an office-based continuing medical education method and to assess the current sexually transmitted diseases/human immunodeficiency virus risk assessment and counseling practices of primary care…

Missions of medical schools include teaching, research, and patient care, but these missions can vary greatly in importance between schools. Schools may also pursue more specific goals in addition to the traditional ones. Additional goals may include production of primary care physicians, recruitment of underrepresented minorities into the medical…

A national representative survey of primary care physicians (N=648) was conducted to determine how they deal with patients who have substance abuse problems. The survey revealed how physicians identify substance abuse in their patients, what efforts they make to help these patients, and what barriers they find to effective diagnosis and treatment.…

This essay is based on a series of roundtables convened through the Knight Collaborative National Medical Education Roundtable. It reports that the challenges and transformations experienced in recent years by community-based medical schools and clinical campuses offer a lens to the whole higher education enterprise, and asks the fundamental…

The advantages of having a pediatrician, under the supervision of the program director, as member of a family medicine faculty are discussed. That academic role is outlined, and because it is a stopgap position, cautions regarding the future of a pediatric-family-medicine faculty member are offered. (JMD)

Two household surveys (n=629, n=544) of a community served by the Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center (New York) found that despite a rapid rise in services provided, unmet needs continued to be great. In the survey report, a model for service provision in underserved communities is examined. (Author/MSE)

Outcomes data from seven medical schools with successful special programs to increase the rural physician work force identify three core features: a strong institutional mission, targeted selection of students likely to practice in rural areas, and a focus on primary care, especially family practice. Rural residency programs should collaborate…

The Senate Committee on Finance met to hear testimony on and discuss the preparation of medical doctors and how the Clinton Administration's proposed health care reform would influence medical education and the supply of health care professionals. Peter P. Budetti, director of the Center for Health Policy Research at George Washington University…

At the SUNY at Buffalo School of Medicine the curriculum of the Department of Family Medicine requires that all sophomores spend eight half-days working with a family physician preceptor in his private practice and eight half-days in seminars. Program implementation, requirements, and evaluation are described. (LBH)

At the University of California, Davis, family nurse practitioners who are faculty members in the Department of Family Practice have proven to be effective teachers of medical students and family practice residents. (Author/LBH)

A discussion of the influence of finances on students' decisions to enter medicine or pursue low-paying careers in primary care or clinical investigation looks at three factors: medical school costs, the magnitude of student indebtedness, and the effects of indebtedness on career choice. (Author/MSE)

This paper outlines forces that are intensifying change in health care delivery and describes institutional obstacles preventing medical schools' adjustment of their educational offerings. Health professions education institutions are urged to develop centers for determining regional and local workforce needs and subsequently establish regionally…

The electives program at the University of Missouri at Kansas City School of Medicine was evaluated. The program provides opportunities for learning in community hospitals, physicians' offices and clinics, the main campus of the university, and other health-resources locations in western Missouri. The School of Medicine emphasizes primary care in…

Traces academic medicine's historical opposition to community medicine and its emphasis on traditional hospital-cased curricula subspecialties, to the neglect of primary and preventive care, community-oriented medicine, and public health. Calls for reducing barriers to basic medical services for all, and for training physicians equipped to respond…