In January 2025, the Society of Teachers of Family Medicine (STFM) launched a comprehensive 5-year strategic plan aimed at reinforcing its mission and vision to advance family medicine education to improve health through a community of teachers and scholars and to become the indispensable academic home for every family medicine educator (Figure 1).
STFM 2025-2029 Strategic Plan
The new strategic plan builds upon STFM’s 2020-2024 achievements in helping residency programs meet new ACGME requirements, addressing the medical education challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic, promoting innovation in technology and training, and reducing racism in medical education. The latter half of the 2020-2024 strategy emphasized the implementation of competency-based medical education (CBME) and residency learning networks within family medicine residency programs, alongside the adoption of cutting-edge technologies, such as point-of-care ultrasound (POCUS) and artificial intelligence (AI).
Significant achievements over the last 5 years include:
Collaboration with residency management software vendors to develop CBME mobile assessments
Publishing joint guidelines for protected nonclinical time for faculty in family medicine residency programs
Launching an STFM podcast
Digitizing the Family Medicine journal
Launching a virtual coaching program and an underrepresented in medicine (URM) mentorship program
Creating a CAFM educational research alliance fellowship (CERA) and a URM scholarship-focused fellowship
Implementation of an antiracism learning collaborative
Development of curriculum for telemedicine, working within health systems, sub-internship, addiction medicine, global health, practice management, point-of-care ultrasound, and artificial intelligence
The new strategic planning process commenced in early 2024, guided by a diverse committee of STFM members and staff, led by Dr Linda Myerholtz, PhD. A collaborative, iterative approach ensured comprehensive stakeholder engagement, incorporating insights from the STFM board of directors, committees, and collaboratives. Dr Myerholtz states:
“The strategic planning committee really valued the input from such a diverse group of stakeholders. We used this guidance to craft a plan that would be a road map for STFM — guiding how to invest resources to meet the needs of our members. Likewise, we needed to craft a plan that allowed for some flexibility so that STFM, while staying true to our mission and vision, can also adjust to address unanticipated opportunities and issues facing medical education over the next 5 years. I am proud of the thoughtful contributions of our members, staff, and strategic planning committee and the ultimate plan that was developed.”
The new strategic plan is anchored by 5 pillars: professional and leadership development, workforce recruitment and retention, scholarship, health equity and antiracism, and advocacy. The objectives and tactics within each pillar build on STFM’s previous accomplishments, ensuring excellence in training, leadership development, and creation of knowledge that improves family medicine education and teaching.
The plan introduces several strategic objectives that address emerging priorities in family medicine education. The “Big Rocks” of the strategy (top priorities) are:
Leading the adoption, implementation, scholarship, and evaluation of ethical artificial intelligence (AI) in family medicine education
Leading the adoption and implementation of POCUS in family medicine education
Other important areas of focus include
Increasing the skill set of family medicine faculty and learners related to diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility
Promoting the adoption of best practices of educational scholarship through the development of a Family Medicine Scholarship Academy
Developing curriculum for teaching and assessing professionalism that is challenged by changes in technology, market forces, and health care delivery systems
Through this strategic roadmap, STFM reaffirms its commitment to shaping the future of family medicine education, ensuring that it remains responsive to the evolving needs of members and the communities they serve. The strategic plan can be found at stfm.org/strategicplan.
- © 2025 Annals of Family Medicine, Inc.
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