DOES FAMILY-PRACTICE AT RESIDENCY TEACHING SITES REFLECT COMMUNITY PRACTICE

Background. Family medicine has aspired to train residents and conduct research in settings that closely resemble community practice. The pu rpose of this study was to compare the patient characteristics of the ambulatory teaching centers of a consortium of seven community-based u niversity-affiliated family practice residency programs in northeast O hio with the National Ambulatory Medical Care Sun ey (NAMCS) results f or family physicians (FPs) and general practitioners (GPs). Methods. N inety-eight faculty and resident physicians at the residency training site of the Northeastern Ohio Universities College of Medicine collect ed data on all ambulatory patient visits (N = 1498) for one randomly c hosen week between July 1, 1991, and Tune 30, 1992. We compared these data with patient visits reported in the 1990 NAMCS for FPs and GPs. R esults. The residency training sites saw slightly more children, women , blacks, and Medicare and Medicaid patients. The most common reason f or an office visit in both populations was an undifferentiated symptom . Fifteen of the top 20 ''reason for visit'' codes were identical, as were 14 of the top 20 diagnoses. More preventive and therapeutic servi ces were offered or performed at our residency training sites but fewe r diagnostic services were performed. There were fewer consultations r equested at our residency training sites but similar hospitalization r ates for patients. The mean duration of visit differed by only 1 minut e. Conclusions. The residency training sites of the Northeastern Ohio Universities College of Medicine provide patient care opportunities si milar to those found in a national survey of family and general practi tioners.