Increasingly, physicians are being scrutinized and held accountable for their medical decisions by governmental regulatory agencies, third party insurance carriers, non-professional groups, and the general public. Given the scrutiny, graduate medical education programs, or residency training programs as they are called, must ensure that they are adequately preparing their residents for prevention, recognition, and management of a broad spectrum of disease problems in the ambulatory care setting. The family practice residency program at Genesys Regional Medical Center in Grand Blanc, Michigan, formerly St. Joseph Hospital (SJH) of Flint, had as its primary ambulatory care training site the Family Health Care Center at SJH campus. A questionnare was mailed to 123 family practice graduates asking them to rate how well they were trained at the SJH/Family Health Center to manage 24 of the most commonly seen patient problems in the ambulatory care setting. They were also asked to rate and comment on how well the Research Practice Management (RPM) rotation prepared them to manage the business side of their office practice. Forty-three percent of the SJH graduates responded to the questionnaire, rating their overall experience with the top 20 most commonly seen ambulatory problems as very good. The areas of training that dealt with patient counseling and behavioral problems, along with RPM rotation were rated less than expected by this author, but the graduates who completed the questionnaire offered possible remedies for improving the ambulatory curriculum.Master'sCollege of Arts and Sciences: Public AdministrationUniversity of Michiganhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/117698/1/Drabek.pd
