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In late 2015, the Society of Teachers of Family Medicine (STFM) was charged with Family Medicine for America’s Health’s (FMAHealth) Workforce Education and Development Core Team’s task of identifying, developing, and disseminating resources for community preceptors. The charge from FMAHealth came at a time when STFM was discussing strategies to address the critical shortage of clinical training sites for medical students. STFM hosted a summit to identify the most significant reasons for the shortage of community preceptors and shape the priorities, leadership, and investments needed to ensure the ongoing education of the primary care workforce. Summit participants were asked to propose solutions to achieve the following aims: (1) decrease the percentage of primary care clerkship directors who report difficulty finding clinical preceptor sites, and (2) increase the percentage of students completing clerkships at high-functioning sites. The outcome of the summit was an action plan with five tactics that are being implemented now: Tactic 1: Work with the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) to revise student documentation guidelines. Tactic 2: Integrate interprofessional/interdisciplinary education into ambulatory primary care settings through integrated clinical clerkships. Tactic 3: Develop a standardized onboarding process for students and preceptors and integrate students into the work of ambulatory primary care settings in useful and authentic ways. Tactic 4: Develop educational collaboratives across departments, specialties, professions, and institutions to improve administrative efficiencies for preceptors. Tactic 5: Promote productivity incentive plans that include teaching and develop a culture of teaching in clinical settings.

Background and Objectives: Family medicine faculty face increasing expectations for clinical productivity. These expectations impinge on academic and education time and make it difficult to pursue research or scholarly activities. A task force convened by the Society of Teachers of Family Medicine created national guidelines to protect nonclinical time for family medicine faculty. Methods: The task force reviewed existing guidelines for protected time, as well as data on current and past distribution of time for faculty in academic medicine, including a specific look at family medicine. Based on the evidence and expert opinion from task force members and leaders of family medicine organizations, the task force developed eight consensus recommendations. Results: The guidelines include recommendations for allocation of protected time for program directors, associate program directors, and core faculty. These represent best practices to ensure programs have appropriate time to devote to the nonclinical duties of training and educating residents, while also promoting innovation in education, faculty well-being, and faculty retention. discussion: Faculty require nonclinical time for resident development, curriculum creation and maintenance, program assessment, and scholarship. Without these functions, programs can’t meet accreditation requirements or fulfill their responsibility to develop strong family physicians. Residency programs, sponsoring institutions, universities, health care systems, and accrediting bodies should use these recommendations to develop budgets that provide appropriate time allocation to enhance faculty wellness, reduce turnover, and meet organizational missions and objectives around education and providing care for communities.

Background and Objectives: Residents have been thrust onto the front lines of the US medical response to COVID-19. This study aimed to quantify and describe the experiences of family medicine residents nationally during the early phases of the pandemic. Specific areas of interest included training received and the residents’ personal sense of safety. The purpose of this study was to look for differences among residents based on geographic location.  Method: This May 2020 survey was conducted by the Council of Academic Family Medicine Educational Research Alliance (CERA) of a random sample of 5,000 resident members of the American Academy of Family Physicians (AAFP). Results: The overall response rate for the survey was 5.66% (283/5,000). More than 40% of residents reported having felt in moderate to significant personal danger during the COVID-19 pandemic. Fewer than 20% had been tested for COVID-19 themselves. Among all respondents, 176 (65.7%) of the residents had provided direct patient care for COVID-19-positive patients. Most had been trained on personal protective equipment and the medical aspects of COVID-19, but 16.2% reported no training on how to care for COVID-19 patients. Minority residents, and residents in larger urban areas were less likely to receive timely training.  Conclusions: The COVID-19 pandemic has had a major impact on family medicine residents’ medical education and their sense of safety. Regional variations in residents’ educational experiences during the pandemic exist. Training prior to COVID-19 exposure was not universal. In our sample, minority residents were less likely to receive timely training than White residents.

BACKGROUND Significant training gaps exist for telemedicine in undergraduate medical education (UME) and graduate medical education (GME). OBJECTIVE This study evaluated the feasibility and acceptability of a national telemedicine curriculum, developed by the Society of Teachers of Family Medicine (STFM), for medical students and family medicine (FM) residents. METHODS 17 medical schools and 17 FM residency programs implemented the curriculum between September 1 and December 31, 2021. Participating sites represented 25 states in all four U.S. census regions with balanced urban, suburban, and rural settings. A total of 1,203 learners, including 844 medical students (70%) and 359 FM residents (30%), participated. Outcomes were measured through self-reported Likert-scale responses. RESULTS More than 9 in 10 learners completed the entire curriculum. Across the modules, 78% (SD = 3) of participants agreed or strongly agreed that they gained new knowledge, skills, and/or attitudes that will help them in their training and/or career; 87% (SD = 4) reported that the information presented was at the right level for them; 80% (SD = 2) reported that the structure of the modules was effective; and 78% (SD = 3) agreed or strongly agreed that they were satisfied. Overall experience did not differ significantly between medical students and FM residents on binary analysis. No consistent statistically significant relationships were found between participants’ responses and their institution’s geographic region, setting, or prior experience with a telemedicine curriculum. CONCLUSIONS Both UME and GME learners, represented by diverse geographic regions and institutions, indicated that the curriculum was broadly acceptable and effective.

STFM leadership has taken decisive action to address a concerning national movement toward maximizing the clinical productivity of academic faculty.

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183offering will allow Diplomates to choose completing KSAs or this alternative activity, which will be named Continuous Knowledge Self-Assessment (CKSA), to meet their MC-FP Part II requirements. We are planning to make this option available in early 2017. Over the course of the following 3 years, we hope to use data gathered from those Diplomates choosing this Part II offering to assess the feasibility of using this format to replace the current Part III examination. Discounting the Cost of MC-FP for Diplomates Aged Over 70 YearsWe have mentioned previously the significant number of Diplomates who continue to participate in MC-FP well into their 70s, 80s, and 90s despite the fact that they are no longer practicing. In recognition of the dedication and commitment that these Diplomates have made to our specialty, we have chosen to offer each of them a 50% discount on their MC-FP fees if they wish to continue to maintain their certification. Transforming Clinical Practice InitiativeBefore closing, we would be remiss in not mentioning 2 other important issues that will demand our attention this year. The first was our recent selection as 1 of 39 health care collaborative networks selected to participate in the federal Transforming Clinical Practice Initiative (TCPI). This initiative was designed to help physicians transform their practices to enhance care coordination and expand information sharing. We will partner with the American Academy of Family Physicians (AAFP) on this effort and will receive as much as $538,000 to help offer the tools, information, and network support needed to assist physicians improve the quality of care they provide, increase patients' access to information, and ensure more judicious use of health care dollars. Our clinical data registry will be an integral part of our plan to strengthen quality of care and develop comprehensive quality improvement strategies for those participating in these networks. Physician BurnoutThe final, but not least important issue, is the increasing rate of physician burnout. We are currently collecting data to understand how prevalent this phenomenon is in board certified family physicians. The findings from the data that we collect will inform our decisions on how we can further enhance MC-FP to create added value and less burden for practicing family physicians in keeping with our promises that we have made with our Diplomates.James C. Puffer, MD STFM TACKLES PRECEPTOR SHORTAGEFamily 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.