National curricular guidelines for third-year family medicine clerkships

In most U.S. medical schools, required clerkships in internal medicine, pediatrics, surgery, obstetrics and gynecology, and psychiatry are considered the core components of a student's clinical education. Because the specialty of family practice is not as well established in the medical school curriculum, the federal government is interested in promoting the specialty as part of its continuing efforts to increase the number of primary care physicians. Therefore, in August 1989 the Division of Medicine, Bureau of Health Professions, United States Department of Health and Human Services, awarded a purchase order to the Society of Teachers of Family Medicine to develop curricular guidelines for third-year family medicine clerkships. The authors represent the working committee that developed these guidelines. This paper describes the process used to develop the core curricular guidelines, presents the product of the curriculum development activities, and discusses dissemination, implementation, and further development activities.