No family medicine at top schools?

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teetotaler14

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In a word...politics.

Most academic medical centers live and die by grant funding. The majority of this is specialty-driven. Consequently, that's where the emphasis is placed. Family medicine doesn't typically generate much in the way of research dollars. It's far more lucrative to fix people after they break.

That being said, most big-center FM residency programs are fairly sucky, since you're basically a loss-leader in those institutions. IMO, you're better off in an "unopposed" program.
 
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My program is at a "top" medical school. At least, in the sense that it's top 20.

It's also a pretty damn good program, unopposed and strongly supported by the university.
 
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I noticed that a good number of top medical schools (Harvard, Yale, Hopkins, etc) don't seem to have full-fledged family medicine departments or residency programs. Is there some historical reason for not having family med at these schools? Has there been any effort by the AAFP or other primary care organizations to raise the profile of family med at these schools?

I think the issue is not needing an FM program. The adult stuff is done by IM, the kid stuff by peds and the OB stuff done by OB. No need for a jack of all trades when you have a master of each individual trade already. Plus, most of these places also don't have very strong outpatient training which would make a weak FM program.
 
The Internal Medicine Board sits in Philadelphia while our board sits in rural Kentucky. AAFP sits in even more rural Kansas. FM is designed for places not overrun by specialists.
 
As others have stated, I assume that the OP is thinking of top research institutions. This is akin to being shocked that there are no programs for Flamenco Studies at Harvard...these simply aren't the institutions where top Family Medicine training (or primary care medicine training in general) is happening.
 
FYI, this is a two-year-old zombie thread. The OP is probably long gone.
 
As others have stated, I assume that the OP is thinking of top research institutions. This is akin to being shocked that there are no programs for Flamenco Studies at Harvard...these simply aren't the institutions where top Family Medicine training (or primary care medicine training in general) is happening.

But there are

An Introduction to Flamenco | Harvard College
 
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The Internal Medicine Board sits in Philadelphia while our board sits in rural Kentucky. AAFP sits in even more rural Kansas. FM is designed for places not overrun by specialists.

While no sprawling metropolis, Lexington, KY is a metro area of about 500K. It is not rural unless literally your only point of reference is New York and LA.
 
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While no sprawling metropolis, Lexington, KY is a metro area of about 500K. It is not rural unless literally your only point of reference is New York and LA.

Everyone who lives in NY or LA thinks the rest of the country is made up entirely of rednecks.
 
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