484 JULY-AUGUST 2013 • VOL. 45, NO. 7 FAMILY MEDICINE ORIGINAL ARTICLES A t the current rate of US pop- ulation growth and with the decreasing proportion of med- ical students seeking careers in pri- mary care medicine, it is estimated that there will be a shortage of up to 46,000 primary care physicians by 2025. 1-6 Declining interest in family medicine begins as early as the sec- ond year of medical school and has been linked to lack of engagement with family medicine curricular ex- periences and role models. 7,8 The American Academy of Family Phy- sicians (AAFP) has identified sever- al factors from the extant literature associated with increased selection of medical students into family med- icine careers: communications and image, admissions and pipeline, role models, and curriculum and educa- tion. 9 Accreditation standards now re- quire career advising and counseling for students as a way of supporting student decision making related to course electives, career selection, and the preparation of residency program applications. 10 Personalized career counseling has traditionally occurred outside the formal curriculum, 11 sometimes functioning as one-on-one learning opportunities in which stu- dents engage with individual faculty who informally serve as role mod- els or mentors. The American Asso- ciation of Medical Colleges (AAMC) Careers in Medicine (CIM) program has been instrumental in encourag- ing medical schools to embrace ca- reer development programming. 11,12 Medical students can access CIM re- sources to support specialty selection and residency application, including descriptions of specialty area prac- tice characteristics, average compen- sation, training requirements, Match data, professional associations, and publications. 13 From the Departments of Family Medicine and Urology (Dr Heidelbaugh), Departments of Family Medicine and Medical Education (Dr Cooke), and Educational Research, Development, and Assessment (Dr Wimsatt), University of Michigan. Opportunities for Medical Student Engagement With Family Medicine Joel Heidelbaugh, MD; James Cooke, MD; Leslie Wimsatt, PhD BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES: Several factors have been linked to the decline in medical student choice of a career in pri- mary care (eg, gender, race, family income, student debt), yet un- derstanding remains limited regarding the availability of curricular and co-curricular experiences for medical students within family medicine that may play a role, particularly one-on-one opportuni- ties such as faculty mentoring and advising. Our study sought to collect baseline data on family medicine learning experiences dur- ing predoctoral training. METHODS: An online 21-question survey was sent to family medi- cine departments at US allopathic medical schools between Janu- ary and March 2012 (84.6% response rate) to capture institutional representation and experiences within family medicine. RESULTS: Most institutions reported offering family medicine in- terest groups (98.1%), electives (97.1%), and clerkships (90.4%). Career advising as an elective course component was available at 53.8% of schools and as part of a required course at 46.2%. Com- parison of public versus private institutions revealed differences in rural medicine experiences, admissions preferences, and residency director involvement in hands-on and small- group teaching. Addi- tional differences were noted by total enrollment, number of fam- ily medicine faculty in senior leadership positions, and proportion of full-time clinical faculty teaching family medicine. CONCLUSIONS: Availability of family medicine curricular program- ming, formal advising/mentoring opportunities, and full-time fac- ulty as teachers and senior administrators differed across various characteristics of medical schools. Results can be used to direct future research on medical student engagement with family medi- cine educational experiences relative to recruitment. (Fam Med 2013;45(7):484-91.)