STFM TACKLES PRECEPTOR SHORTAGE

Family medicine clerkships are struggling to obtain and retain quality clinical training sites. Contributing factors include time constraints, competition for a limited number of training sites, physician’s concerns about their ability to be effective teachers, physician burnout, and dated practice models that aren’t ideal training sites.^1–4

Over the past several years, STFM has developed resources to help community preceptors be more effective teachers and to ensure that students add value to the process of caring for patients. Resources include:

• White paper: “Strategies to Ensure that Students Add Value in Outpatient Offices”

• Position statement and preceptor guidelines on student use of electronic health records

• TeachingPhysician.org: A comprehensive web-based resource that connects medical schools and residency programs to community preceptors. It delivers videos, tips, answers to frequently asked questions, and links to in-depth information on precepting topics to more than 19,000 community preceptors. The site and the monthly communications to preceptors have recently been completely revamped to include:

  • ○ An institution-wide username and password to make it easier for preceptors to access the site

  • ○ Pathways for different users. There are content paths from the home page for resident teachers, new teachers, and preceptors who have a student coming to their office in the immediate future

  • ○ A redesigned monthly e-mail to preceptors that is less promotional and more informational

  • ○ Password-protected institutional hubs where medical schools can share news and upload documents, such as curriculum and student evaluation forms

  • ○ A “rate this content/provide feedback” feature to allow for continuous improvement of content

  • ○ Introductory content that isn’t password-protected to get more people involved in precepting

  • ○ A medical school finder so those interested in precepting can find a school in their area

  • ○ Additional/updated videos and podcasts

  • ○ Increased automation and faster speeds

STFM’s Medical Student Education Committee is hosting a preconference workshop at the STFM Annual Spring Conference, titled “Best Practices for Preceptor Recruitment and Retention.” In this interactive workshop for faculty and community preceptors, participants will (1) identify and address barriers to recruitment and retention of community preceptors, (2) identify motivating factors for community preceptors, (3) describe onboarding/orienting community preceptors in this teaching role, (4) demonstrate how to give feedback to students in an outpatient clinical setting, and (5) discuss the needs of preceptors and health systems with regards to teaching students in the clinical setting.

STFM’s Group on medical student education is conducting national focus groups of community physicians who are or may become preceptors to identify relevant factors in decisions to precept. They will then use lean methodology to rapidly test interventions and innovations to address barriers and create value for community physicians in their role as preceptors. This multi-institutional qualitative study of the preceptors will inform future preceptor recruitment and retention initiatives.

STFM is collaborating with Family Medicine for America’s Health and the other family medicine organizations to address the preceptor shortage more globally. The organizations are discussing the possibility of bringing together a variety of stakeholders for a full-day summit to develop a detailed plan of action to:

• Reduce the time burden associated with precepting

• Increase the value of students in community practices

• Improve the quality of the precepting experience for preceptors and students

Family medicine education cannot succeed without community preceptors to train students in outpatient offices. Recruitment and retention of a sufficient number of preceptors in high-performing practices is going to be a continual challenge given the evolving healthcare environment and the increasing number of medical students and other trainees requiring clinical placements.

• © 2016 Annals of Family Medicine, Inc.