Revitalizing Primary Care Internal Medicine Training Through the Accreditation Process

Excerpt

Over the past 2 decades, the existential challenges facing primary care practice in the USA¹ have spilled over to compromise internal medicine residency training in primary care.^2,3 Once a source of pride and a model for cutting-edge primary care delivery,⁴ many model teaching practices at academic medical centers have become shells of their former selves, grossly underfunded and uninspiring.^2,3,5 Training in such settings is more likely to discourage a career in primary care than to encourage one.^2,4 A site-visit survey of family medicine and primary care internal medicine teaching practices found that all too often the institution emphasized inpatient care to the detriment of the primary care training mission.⁵ As attested to by primary care clinic and program directors at a recent national SGIM meeting, funding is inadequate and becoming increasingly problematic. …