Criteria for Excellence | Chapter 9: The family medicine practice: The practice is the curriculum

Authors: Bryan Hodge, DO; Bill Gillanders, MD; Louis Sanner, MD; and Steve Crane, MD

Family medicine residency training is the foundation for creating physicians who will care for communities across multiple settings. The family medicine practice (FMP) is where residents train and “imprint” the principles of patient care for decades to come. The goal of the specialty is to train “generalists who care for diverse individuals in the context of their families and communities through accessible, comprehensive, continuous, and coordinated care.”¹

This chapter serves as a guide to facilitate residency programs’ attainment of clinical and educational excellence in practice. To provide an optimal overview, the content is broken into three sections that describe the principles grounding the family medicine practice, the form and function of the FMP site, and the models of care delivery. As the health care environment continues to evolve, clinical care delivered in a residency training program will be foundational to the family medicine specialty’s core principles for generations to come.