GRADUATE SURVEYS: AN OPPORTUNITY FOR RESIDENCY RESEARCH

Because of the educational demands placed upon family medicine residency programs, research and other forms of scholarly activity are often difficult to incorporate, initiate, and complete. With minor alterations and a small amount of additional work, many activities associated with a residency program can be developed into research projects. For example, the family medicine residency programs affiliated with the South Carolina Area Health Education Consortium (SC AHEC) have utilized the required graduate survey as a research tool.

Based upon the Program Requirements for Residency Education in Family Practice, each program must maintain a system of evaluation of its graduates. The residency should obtain feedback on demographic and practice profiles, licensure and board certification, the graduates’ perceptions of the relevancy of training to practice, suggestions for improving the training, and ideas for new areas of curriculum. This information is to be used as part of the program’s determination of the degree to which the program’s goals are being met. The program requirements recommend that a written survey after 1 year and every 5 years thereafter be conducted to collect the above data.

To fulfill this requirement and to further develop research activities into their programs, the family medicine residency programs affiliated with the SC AHEC have developed a flexible, graduate survey tool. Starting with 1999, this instrument is mailed from a central office every 5 years to the more than 1,400 graduates of the 8 programs in South Carolina. The survey has been constructed to include questions regarding graduates’ demographic and practice profiles, along with the other information recommended by the RRC. In addition, the survey includes a section that is devoted to questions developed by faculty or current residents regarding research topics of current interest.

To date, the surveys have produced the desired results of providing feedback to the programs regarding their graduates as well as promoting research. From the initial survey, the program directors were able to examine the following issues: practice profiles and patterns, career satisfaction, the graduates’ perceptions of the relevancy of training to practice, and activity in medical student and resident education of the graduates of the SC AHEC’s affiliated family medicine residency programs.¹ Further research from this has determined whether there were important differences in practice patterns of physicians based on the academic affiliation of the residency in which they trained. Finally, several faculty members were able to evaluate the practice profiles of all female compared with male family physician graduates of SC training programs.

From the most recent survey, the program directors were again able to examine the education and practice location of and the services provided by their graduates so they could give the SC AHEC and these programs specific, up-to-date information regarding these physicians.² For this specific survey, questions regarding practice management curriculum; lifestyle activities, such as physical activity, tobacco use, obesity, influenza vaccination, and tetanus immunization; and interaction with pharmaceutical representatives were included as a part of additional research projects.

Not only are faculty using the graduate survey for research purposes; residents have also developed research projects using this information. During the recent SC AHEC Hickory Knob Research Symposium, William M. Tucker, III, MD (a second-year resident at the Trident/MUSC Family Medicine Residency Program in Charleston, SC), presented his project, “An Analysis of Procedure Training and Practice Trends: Which Procedures Should be Taught in a Family Medicine Residency?”

The graduate survey is one opportunity for a residency program to incorporate research and other scholarly activity. Consistent with the ACGME core competencies, critically evaluation of the manner in which program requirements are being met through research and quality improvement initiatives parallels the practice-based learning, improvement, and professionalism expected from residents. Furthermore, the presentation and publication of these projects contributes to the professional and public awareness of the discipline of family medicine.

• © 2005 Annals of Family Medicine, Inc.