The family medicine clerkship over the past 10 years at Ben Gurion University of the Negev

Background: Most medical teaching takes place in the academic hospital setting and students continue to have little exposure to community-based medicine. Description: The Goldman School of Medicine of the Ben-Gurion University of the Negev is a 6-year program. The 6-week family medicine clerkship takes place in the 5th year. It includes experience with home care, patient and family centered care, ongoing comprehensive responsibility, common office clinical skills, and specific organization of practicing in the community. At the end of the clerkship, students are asked to complete anonymous feedback forms to evaluate the clerkship, its formal curriculum, and the teachers. Evaluation: Over the last 3 years, 157 general course evaluation,forms were returned (84.4% compliance). The mean general evaluation and satisftiction score was 3.4 out of 4, ranking it very high compared to other clerkships in our medical school. In the same time period, 176 specific teachers evaluation forms were returned, with a mean score of 4.6 (2 = weak; 5 = excellent), compared with a mean score of 4.5 in 1,485 teachers evaluation forms from other clinical clerkships. Conclusions: As the focus of patient care shifts to the community, the focus of medical teaching should follow the same route. We hope that our experience will help in promoting this change and in developing new ideas for teaching family medicine and primary care.