FP Report -- 1999 Post-Assembly Edition
Resident/Student News
Education items crowd Congress' agenda
The Congress of Delegates took action on a variety of education issues Sept. 14-16 in Orlando, Fla.
The student constituency succeeded in having the AAFP broaden its nondiscrimination clause to include students. The revised statement reads, "The Academy supports the application of this principle (nondiscrimination) for practicing physicians and for physicians and medical students applying to a residency program."
The resident constituency obtained AAFP's opposition to a recent recommendation of the Federation of State Medical Boards. The FSMB suggested states should require three years of postgraduate training for full licensure.
"Thirty-four states now require one year of training, 14 require two years and only two states require three years," David Meyers, M.D., of Washington, D.C., told the education reference committee. "The FSMB recommendation would stop the practice of moonlighting, something dear to the hearts of residents." He spoke as chair of the 1999 National Congress of Family Practice Residents. The residents' resolution also said the three-year requirement could keep residents from helping staff clinics, urgent care centers and emergency rooms.
Delegate Tess Garcia, M.D., of Grain Valley, Mo., representing students, said waiting until residency graduation to become licensed could postpone board certification, which would postpone participation in such programs as the National Health Service Corps.
"Any requirement that would not allow us to become board-certified immediately upon graduation from a residency would mess up our NHSC program," Garcia told the committee. "To have to wait to sit for the boards limits the NHSC sites we could choose."
On other topics, the Congress called for the addition of cross-cultural and end-of-life training to family practice residency requirements, as well as the incorporation of cross-cultural issues in CME courses.
FP Report is published by the AAFP News Department. Copyright © 1999 by American Academy of Family Physicians.
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