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Confidence of academic general internists and family physicians to teach ambulatory procedures

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Abstract

OBJECTIVE: To evaluate and compare the readiness of academic general internal medicine physicians and academic family medicine physicians to perform and teach 13 common ambulatory procedures.

DESIGN: Mailed survey.

SETTING: Internal medicine and family medicine residency training programs associated with 35 medical schools in 9 eastern states.

PARTICIPANTS: Convenience sample of full-time teaching faculty.

MEASUREMENTS AND MAIN RESULTS: A total of 331 general internists and 271 family physicians returned completed questionnaires, with response rates of 57% and 65%, respectively. Academic generalists ranked most of the ambulatory procedures as important for primary care physicians to perform; however, they infrequently performed or taught many of the procedures. Overall, compared with family physicians, general internists performed and taught fewer procedures, received less training, and were less confident in their ability to teach these procedures. Physicians’ confidence to teach a procedure was strongly associated with training to perform the procedure and performing or precepting a procedure at least 10 times per year.

CONCLUSIONS: Many academic general internists do not perform or precept common adult ambulatory procedures. To ensure that residents have the opportunity to learn routine ambulatory procedures, training programs may need to recruit qualified faculty, train current faculty, or arrange for academic specialists or community physicians to teach these skills.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. the Department of Medicine, Summa Health System/Northeastern Ohio Universities College of Medicine, Akron, Ohio

    Glenda C. Wickstrom MD, MS

  2. Department of Medicine, Pennsylvania State University School of Medicine, Hershey, Pa

    David K. Kelley MD

  3. Department of Medicine, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Medicine, Chapel Hill, NC

    Thomas C. Keyserling MD, MPH & Carmen L. Lewis MD

  4. Section of Internal Medicine, West Virginia University School of Medicine, Morgantown, WVa

    Maria M. Kolar MD

  5. Department of Internal Medicine/Department of Family Practice, Eastern Virginia University School of Medicine, Norfolk, Va

    James G. Dixon MD

  6. Department of Health Evaluation Sciences, Pennsylvania State University, Hershey, Pa

    Sharon X. Xie PhD

  7. Department of Internal Medicine, University of South Florida School of Medicine, Tampa, Fla

    Bryan A. Bognar MD

  8. Section of General Medicine, Medical College of Georgia, Augusta, Ga

    Connie T. DuPre MD

  9. Department of Medicine, Vanderbilt University School of Medicine, Nashville, Tenn

    David R. Coxe MD

  10. Department of Internal Medicine, University of Louisville, School of Medicine, Louisville, Ky

    Juliana Hayden MD

  11. Department of Medicine, Emory University School of Medicine, Atlanta, Ga

    Mark V. Williams MD

Authors
  1. Glenda C. Wickstrom MD, MS
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  2. David K. Kelley MD
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  3. Thomas C. Keyserling MD, MPH
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  4. Maria M. Kolar MD
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  5. James G. Dixon MD
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  6. Sharon X. Xie PhD
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  7. Carmen L. Lewis MD
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  8. Bryan A. Bognar MD
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  9. Connie T. DuPre MD
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  10. David R. Coxe MD
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  11. Juliana Hayden MD
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  12. Mark V. Williams MD
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Glenda C. Wickstrom MD, MS.

Additional information

This work was supported in part by grant 2D28PE54004 from the Bureau of Health Professions, Health Resources and Services Administration, to the Faculty, Development Program for General Internal Medicine, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and by Grant 52285 from the Summa Health System, Akron, Ohio.

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Wickstrom, G.C., Kelley, D.K., Keyserling, T.C. et al. Confidence of academic general internists and family physicians to teach ambulatory procedures. J GEN INTERN MED 15, 353–360 (2000). https://doi.org/10.1046/j.1525-1497.2000.04109.x

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1046/j.1525-1497.2000.04109.x

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