Family medicine research capacity in the USA

Scholarly Productivity of US Medical Schools Before and During the COVID-19 Pandemic

“…8 Faculty at medical schools also may experience barriers to research that differ by specialty, with Primary Care and especially Family Medicine faculty exhibiting lower academic productivity than faculty in other departments. 8,33 At the institutional level, larger centers, particularly centers with a higher number of residents, tend to exhibit higher scholarly productivity, 32,34 as do medical schools with higher levels of NIH funding. 5 As such, our showing increasing medical school scientific output during the COVID-19 pandemic must be understood within the context of these preexisting inequalities in access to resources and opportunities for faculty participation in research.…”

“…At the same time, faculty appointment to non-tenure-earning tracks also is correlated with lower research productivity than tenure-track appointments 8 . Faculty at medical schools also may experience barriers to research that differ by specialty, with Primary Care and especially Family Medicine faculty exhibiting lower academic productivity than faculty in other departments 8,33 . At the institutional level, larger centers, particularly centers with a higher number of residents, tend to exhibit higher scholarly productivity, 32,34 as do medical schools with higher levels of NIH funding 5 .…”

Maintaining a Sufficient Primary Care Workforce: A Problem We Should Not Have

“…In addition to the provision of clinical care, an insufficient primary care workforce has implications for the scientific base for primary care practice. Discussions about the need for more and better primary care research to improve practice have taken place for years ( 19 ). If the primary care workforce declines too low, then it is likely that the academic workforce will also decline.…”

A 5-Year Update on the Building Research Capacity Initiative

“…Since 2016, BRC has been working to provide opportunities for all departments and residency programs to engage family medicine leaders, researchers, and each other by offering interactive workshops at national family medicine meetings, sharing curricular examples to build a culture of inquiry, supporting a consultation service for departments or programs (more below on this), as well as evaluating and assessing all our efforts on an ongoing basis. In the last 5 years we have also gathered and shared data on family medicine research capacity and output [2][3][4][5][6][7] and have piloted a fellowship program which will formally launch with a larger cohort this year. The Building Research Capacity Steering Committee has begun 2021 with new changes in leadership with an eye toward succession planning and a broader framework to expand our culture of inquiry.…”