title: Family Medicine or Primary Care Residency Selection: Effects of Family Medicine Interest Groups, MD/MPH Dual Degrees, and Rural Medical Education.
abstract: If medical schools are to produce primary care physicians (family medicine, pediatrics, or general internal medicine), they must provide educational experiences that enable medical students to maintain existing or form new interests in such careers. This study examined three mechanisms for doing so, at one medical school: participation as an officer in a family medicine interest group (FMIG), completion of a dual medical/public health (MD/MPH) degree program, and participation in a rural medical education (RMED) clinical track.
  
  
  
  Specialty Match data for students who graduated from the study institution between 2006 and 2015 were included as dependent variables in bivariate analysis (c2) and logistic regression models, examining FMIG, MD/MPH, and RMED participation as independent predictors of specialty choice (family medicine yes/no, or any primary care (PC) yes/no), controlling for student demographic data.
  
  
  
  In bivariate c2 analyses, FMIG officership did not significantly predict matching with family medicine or any PC; RMED and MD/MPH education were significant predictors of both family medicine and PC. Binary logistic regression analyses replicated the bivariate findings, controlling for student demographics.
  
  
  
  Dual MD/MPH and rural medical education had stronger effects in producing primary care physicians than participation in a FMIG as an officer, at one institution. Further study at multiple institutions is warranted.
authors.affiliation: College of Medicine, SUNY Upstate Medical University, Syracuse, NY.
authors.forename: Elizabeth
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Wei McIntosh
authors.forename: Christopher P
authors.initials: CP
authors.lastname: Morley
mesh_terms: D002321:Career Choice; D005194:Family Practice; D006801:Humans; D007388:Internal Medicine; D007396:Internship and Residency; D016015:Logistic Models; D010372:Pediatrics; D011320:Primary Health Care; D011634:Public Health / Q000193:education; D011639:Public Opinion; D012189:Retrospective Studies; D012424:Rural Population; D014481:United States