Abstract
Background: The consensus over the last 20 years is that increased availability of primary care reduces the overall cost of healthcare and improves mortality and morbidity rates by as much as 1.44 fewer deaths per 10,000 people (American College of Physicians, 2008; Shi, Starfield, Kennedy, & Kawachi, 1999). However, not enough physicians are going into primary care to meet the need for improved and increased access. By 2020, the expanded Title VII program goal is to produce a physician workforce that is at least 40 percent primary care (Jackson et al., 2014). Estimates show that 74% of U.S. medical school graduates go into non-primary care specialties (Pugno, McGaha, Schmittling, DeVilbiss, & Kahn, 2007), but a shortage of 45,000 primary care physicians remains (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 2013). Purpose: In light of this dire forecast, this paper builds upon a proposal by Campos-Outcalt and Senf (1999) (where a student-run clinic affected a minority of students’ residency choices) to see if the use of studentrun free clinics among students at a state academic medical center would build medical students’ interest in primary care and influence their choice of residency. Methods: A retrospective analysis of volunteers at the Jackson Free Clinic from 2012 to 2017 in Jackson, Mississippi, was carried out. Results: Results indicated a statistical correlation between the fourth-year medical students’ frequency of volunteering at JFC and their choice of primary care in residency. However, for first-, second-, and third-year medical students, there was no significant correlation between volunteer time at JFC and choosing a primary care residency.
Recommended Citation
Momah, T.
(2023). Training the Next Generation of Primary-Care Physicians: Are Student-Run Free Clinics (SRFCs) the Way to Go?.
Journal of Public Health in the Deep South, 1(1), 14.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.55533/2996-6833.1029