The state of undergraduate pediatric medical education in North America: The COMSEP survey.
OBJECTIVE
One mission of all academic medical centers is the education of medical students. The resources allocated to the oversight of this mission vary. The status of pediatric undergraduate medical education and the role of the pediatric clerkship director (PCD) was published in 1995. We sought to provide an updated description by surveying current North American PCDs.


METHODS
A survey was designed by members of the Council on Medical Student Education in Pediatrics and administered via the Internet.


RESULTS
Eighty-four percent of U.S. PCDs (110/131) and 50% of Canadian PCDs (8/16) completed the survey. Significant differences compared with 1995 include (a) more clerkship directors are assistant professors, women, and generalists; (b) clerkship directors have more time for clerkship activities but less than they perceive that they need; and (c) traditional scholarship is even more difficult to accomplish than in the past.


CONCLUSIONS
The position of PCD is perceived to be a legitimate career track, but most PCDs hold lower academic rank and have less traditional scholarly activity than PCDs did 10 years ago. Although PCDs have more time (40% now vs. 28% in 1995), they still feel that it is not adequate, needing almost 50% of their total time to adequately do their job.
White
Christopher B
CB
Department of Pediatrics, Medical College of Georgia, Augusta, Georgia 30912, USA. cwhite@mcg.edu
Waller
Jennifer L
JL
Freed
Gary
G
Levine
David A
DA
Moore
Renee S
RS
Sharkey
Angela
A
Greenberg
Larrie
L
D000046:Academic Medical Centers; D002982:Clinical Clerkship / Q000458:organization & administration* / Q000592:standards; D003625:Data Collection; D004504:Education, Medical, Undergraduate / Q000592:standards*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009656:North America; D010372:Pediatrics / Q000193:education*