title: Community service by North Carolina family physicians.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Community service is an integral part of American society. Although Family Medicine advocates community service through community medicine, few data exist on family physicians' involvement in voluntary community service activities or roles as community advocates.
  
  
  METHODS
  A questionnaire was mailed to 489 North Carolina family physicians, including a 20% random sample of those in community practice and all statewide faculty physicians. The survey assessed types and amount of volunteer activity, attitudes toward volunteer work, and factors that support or inhibit participation in community service.
  
  
  RESULTS
  The overall response rate was 54%. Most respondents reported strong interests in community service before medical school and residency, yet few reported any relevant training during medical education. More than 85% of faculty and community practice family physicians reported participating in volunteer service in the previous year (70.8 mean hours for faculty vs 45.5 mean hours for community practice; P = .06). Family physicians also reported a wide variety of lifetime volunteer activities (mean number of different faculty physician activities 20.8 vs mean number of different community practice physician activities 16.7, P = .00). Less than 50% of both physician groups reported that their practice or program publicly supports those performing community service.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The great majority of family physicians in North Carolina regularly participate in one or more volunteer community service activities, frequently without organizational recognition. Data about the scope of service expected by communities and provided by physicians may assist the discipline in clarifying the place of volunteer community service in medical education, promotion guidelines and practice.
authors.affiliation: Department of Family Medicine, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC 27599-7595, USA. aog@med.unc.edu
authors.forename: Adam O
authors.initials: AO
authors.lastname: Goldstein
authors.forename: Diane
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Calleson
authors.forename: Peter
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Curtis
authors.forename: Brian
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Hemphill
authors.forename: George
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Gamble
authors.forename: Beat
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Steiner
authors.forename: Thomas K
authors.initials: TK
authors.lastname: Moore
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D001291:Attitude of Health Personnel; D016009:Chi-Square Distribution; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D009657:North Carolina; D010821:Physicians, Family / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D014838:Volunteers / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*