Academic Family Medicine Groups Launch New Educational Research Resource

As part of an ongoing effort to improve the quality of educational research, the AAFP's sister organizations that make up the Council of Academic Family Medicine, or CAFM, have launched a new resource for residents and faculty.

The CAFM Educational Research Alliance will provide members of the Society of Teachers of Family Medicine, or STFM; the Association of Departments of Family Medicine; the Association of Family Medicine Residency Directors and the North American Primary Care Research Group a clearinghouse of data on family medicine. Residents and faculty can use these data for research and analysis to meet scholarly activity requirements.

Data for the clearinghouse will be collected through surveys of family medicine department chairs, residency program directors, clerkship directors and behavioral science directors. Each survey will combine queries about core family medicine education information with specific questions submitted by CAFM members.

The first survey was sent out July 14, and the initial round of data is expected to be available by November. Specific topics covered in the inaugural survey are

CAFM members are invited to submit applications (1-page PDF; About PDFs) now to have their questions included in future surveys.