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Impact of a first-year primary care experience on residency choice

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Abstract

We designed a retrospective cohort study of first-year medical students to assess the impact of a community-based primary care course, Introduction to Primary Care (IPC), on residency choice. In the group that took IPC (n=282), 48.2% entered generalist residencies (internal medicine, pediatrics, family medicine, or medicine/pediatrics), compared to 38.2% in the group that wanted IPC (n=398) and 39.6% in the group that did not want IPC (n=245). Controlling for gender, students who took IPC had a 40% higher odds of selecting a generalist residency than those who wanted to take IPC (odds ratio [OR], 1.42; 95% confidence interval [CI], 1.04 to 1.95). There was no difference between those who wanted IPC and those who did not (OR, 1.08; CI, 0.78 to 1.52). The community-based primary care experience was positively associated with students’ selection of generalist residencies.

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Correspondence to Martha S. Grayson MD.

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Preliminary results were presented as a poster at the annual meeting of the Society of General Internal Medicine, May 6, 2000, Boston, Mass.

This research was funded by New York Medical College and a grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s Generalist Physician Initiative.

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Grayson, M.S., Klein, M. & Franke, K.B. Impact of a first-year primary care experience on residency choice. J GEN INTERN MED 16, 860–863 (2001). https://doi.org/10.1046/j.1525-1497.2001.10117.x

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1046/j.1525-1497.2001.10117.x

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