Surgical practice of primary care physicians in a rural state: Implications for curriculum design

Background: We surveyed practicing primary care physicians to help determin e surgical practice patterns of primary care physicians in a rural state. T he information obtained car? be used to make surgical curriculum decisions for generalist medical students and primary care residents. Methods: We dev eloped a questionnaire in which practicing primary care physicians were ask ed to rate, on a 5-point Likert scale, the importance of 145 areas of surgi cal knowledge and 48 areas of clinical skills to their practice. Responses were rank ordered by the mean ratings for each individual item. The questio nnaire was sent to all 876 primary care physicians in the home stare of the institution. Results: The survey response rate was 61% (n=534). The most h ighly ranked items and procedures included acute otitis media, sinusitis, g astroesophageal reflux disease, pharyngitis, urinary tract infection, perfo rmance of abdominal exam, history and physical, daily progress notes, ear c anal cleaning and ability to write admission orders. The lowest ranked item s included transplantation, infertility, amputations, performance of trache ostomy, venous cutdown, and cricothyrotomy. Conclusions: Information regard ing the surgical practice patterns of practicing primary care physicians ca n be used to develop a surgical curriculum for medical students and primary care residents.