STFM Project Fund

Projects are funded for a maximum of 2 years, and funding is not renewable. Funds may be budgeted in the categories below. Indirect costs are not provided.

• Required equipment (eg, a laptop computer) and supplies (eg, photocopying).
• Travel (eg, funds to present project outcomes at STFM meetings and/or attend project team meetings).
• Personnel (eg, to purchase a statistical consultant's time). Funds for faculty and/or staff release time must be contributed "in-kind" by departments/programs.
• Production and technical support.

A project may be funded for 1 or 2 years at one of the two levels below:

• Full Funding: A few proposals of exceptional quality and potential impact may be funded up to $10,000 total.
• Seed Money: To support projects up to $5,000 total.

Proposals at either funding level must have matching in-kind contributions for personnel (eg, faculty and/or staff), equipment, and/or supplies.  Any unspent dollars from projects must be returned to the STFM Foundation.

• Project has strong relationship to the community/special project team goals.
• Project is aligned with STFM’s strategic plan. 
• Project rationale is innovative and adds new knowledge and/or advances an existing body of knowledge.
• Project identifies measurable outcomes.
• Project’s activities are innovative and match proposed goals and objectives.
• Evaluation methods are valid and reliable.
• Project yields outcomes that STFM’s members and constituencies can use.
• Project has potential of continuing after initial funding.
• There is a clear dissemination plan for project results or products.
• Project budget includes matching funds from a department or other sources.

Any STFM Collaborative or Special Project Team may submit a proposal for funding. Proposals must follow the format shown on the application form and be submitted electronically to Sandy VanTuyl at svantuyl@stfm.org by November 1.

Proposals that would conduct a survey must be coordinated with CERA (CAFM Education Research Alliance).

The STFM Executive Committee will fund selected proposals at one of the levels stated in the Funding Details tab. Proposals will be assessed using the Proposal Rating Form. Principal investigators will be notified about the funding decision on February 15, and funds will be dispersed by March 1. The project period runs from March 1–February 28. Principal investigators of funded proposals must submit a progress report to the STFM Executive Director on September 1 of the project period, and at 6-month intervals until the final report due by March 20 in the year of completion.

Application form (Word)
Example of funded project (Word)

STFM Project Fund Recipients

Project:  Addressing Underrepresented in Military Medicine  
Description: This project will utilize a three-prong approach to address those underrepresented in medicine, cross-cultural mentorship, racism, and health equity within military family medicine. First, a cross sectional survey will be conducted to assess military family physicians’ knowledge, skills, and attitudes regarding those underrepresented in medicine (URM). Second, a workshop will be conducted to address key principles in effective cross-cultural mentorship that assist in navigating differences in socioeconomic status, historical injustice, racism, and privilege between non-URM and URM. Third, a six-hour Humanism in Medicine curriculum will be embedded into the Practice Management Curriculum at the National Capital Consortium Family Medicine Residency to address bias, religion in medicine, and race-based medicine. The overall objective of this proposal is to examine underrepresented in military medicine while addressing specific gaps in faculty development and curriculum.

STFM Collaborative:  Minority and Multicultural Health
Principal Investigator: Lisa M. Harris, DO, Uniformed Services University of the Health Science
Award: $7,500 over 2 years

Project: Creating a Global Health Residency Curriculum Toolkit
Description: This project is a collaborative effort between STFM GHEC and the AAFP Center for Global Health Initiatives (CGHI). The purpose of the project is to create a global health (GH) curriculum resource toolkit for family medicine residency programs. Studies have found that students and residents that have completed GH electives improve their clinical and diagnostic skills, knowledge of tropical diseases and cultural competence as well as resourcefulness and cost-effectiveness. They are also more likely to choose a primary care specialty and have future practices in underserved settings. There is also evidence that residents choose residency programs based on availability of GH opportunities, as residency is an ideal time for a GH elective. A 2016 CERA survey found that 74.6% of Family Medicine residencies offer GH opportunities. However, there is no single curricular standard for GH or a centralized resource specific for residents. GH curricula are unique to each residency program. This project aims to summarize the GH curricula and resources found across Family Medicine residency programs, to invite key informants to evaluate the resources and to make resources available in accessible, centralized, web-based locations. 

STFM Collaborative:  Global Health Educators
Principal Investigator: Sommer Aldulaimi MD, The University of Arizona
Award: $7,500 over 2 years

2020

Project:Images of Burnout and Resilience: A National PhotoVoice Project
Description: The purpose of this project is to collect, curate, disseminate, and study images of burnout and resilience, as it is experienced by medical learners (students and residents) and faculty members. Through this process of critical examination, we hope to gain a deeper understanding of how physicians and medical students experience burnout and cultivate resilience. We will disseminate this understanding broadly within the medical education community, using both the academic peer review process and social media marketing. A secondary purpose is to facilitate educational sessions for medical learners, in which these images will be collected, shared, and discussed. By facilitating discussion about burnout and resilience at a local and national level, the project will contribute to the development of personal and community resilience among medical learners and educators. 
STFM Collaborative:  Professional Well Being
Principal Investigator: Julie Phillips, MD, MPH,  Sparrow-MSU Family Medicine Residency Program, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI
Award: $5,000 over 2 years

Project: Practice Management Handbook – for Residents, Residency Programs, and Practicing Physician
Description: We are creating a free online and pdf handbook on practice management to help teach residents high-yield information in an engaging way.  There are a large variety of topics that cannot all be listed here. Examples include; how to get hired, how to start and manage a practice, basic and advanced billing and coding with practice cases, malpractice and legal issues, financial wellness, work-life balance, success in practice with discussion about efficiency/practice optimization, care for diverse populations, and a highlight of the breadth of family medicine practices.  We hope to expand residents’ knowledge of the various avenues and types of practices they can pursue and encourage them to maintain or even broaden their scope of practice to the degree they are interested, by providing practical resources to successfully accomplish this.  This handbook will also equip faculty to better teach practice management to residents. Finally, while our main goal is to improve education in practice management and to provide an educational curricular resource, this handbook will equally be helpful to those starting in a new practice and for those that are trying to navigate practice management changes and to improve practice efficiency.  
STFM Collaborative: Practice Management Collaborative
Principal Investigator: Lisa Gilbert, MD, FAAFP, University of Kansas, Wichita 
Award: $5,000 over 2 years

2019

Project: STFM/CFPC Global Family Medicine Education Symposium
Description: Many of the challenges faced in expanding and advocating for family medicine education are not unique to the United States context. Research and practice improvement findings are available from around the globe which can better inform our own educational systems and structures and, similarly, allow us to share our own best practices with others. STFM-GHEC leadership, in conjunction with colleagues in the Canadian Family Physicians, including representatives of the University of Toronto and the Besrour Center, will host an evening dinner symposium on Monday, April 29th, during the STFM Annual Spring Conference. The event will offer an opportunity for both formal and informal networking and knowledge sharing between US and internationally-based physicians surrounding topics of key importance in family medicine education..
STFM Collaborative:  Global Health Educators
Principal Investigator: Esther Johnston, MD, MPH, The Wright Center National FMR at HealthPoint
Award: $1,000 over 1 year

Project: Beginning Writing Skills for Early Career Minority Faculty
Description: This project will be a two-year extension of the writing workshops from STFM. The steering committee of the multicultural and minority health collaborative will take on six new, junior faculty members and actively mentor them from writing a letter to the editor to completing their first manuscript based on their published letter to the editor. We will assist them in finding data sources, completing the IRB application, analyzing the data, and writing the manuscript. We will also encourage the protégés to present at two conferences and use those presentations to inform the scholarly project.
STFM Collaborative: Minority and Multicultural Health
Principal Investigator: Jose Rodriguez, MD, University of Utah Health Sciences
Award: $8,000 over 2 years

Project: Creation of a National Addiction Medicine Curriculum for Family Medicine Residency Programs
Description: The STFM’s Addiction Collaborative proposes creation of a national addiction medicine curriculum accessible to Family Medicine Residency programs across the country seeking to launch a first-time curriculum or improve an existing one. We will design this curriculum via a 3-step approach: first, we will develop a list of core competencies by soliciting feedback from expert family medicine educators across the country and from national addiction societies’ guidelines; second, we will develop a curriculum based on these competencies; third, we will test and evaluate this curriculum at several residency programs across the country before more broadly expanding access. The curriculum will cater to programs with various levels of need and include both online and in-person learning. We will create high quality, interactive modules with videos, case scenarios, knowledge checks, and learning objectives that residents can complete asynchronously. Taking a flipped classroom approach, we will also design an instructor’s guide that faculty can use to facilitate an in-person classroom session with discussions and practice through case-based learning. Finally, we will offer family medicine residency program faculty members opportunities for enhanced teaching support through a six-month ECHO (Extension for Community Health Outcomes) hub that provides bi-weekly didactics, case presentations, and expert troubleshooting with members of the Addiction Collaborative. This multimodal curriculum will thus provide a complete package of knowledge-based content and skill development that is adaptable to the needs and capacity of any residency program. We will specifically cater to faculty who have little specialized training in addiction but still create content that can be tweaked by those with more robust training. We will also design strategies for programs to support and evaluate resident competency development over time. We will pilot the national addiction medicine curriculum at several residency programs and evaluate its effectiveness and feasibility. We will then seek additional funding from national and state organizations (e.g., AAFP, ASAM) to expand and improve the curriculum and disseminate it across the country.
STFM Collaborative: Addictions
Principal Investigator: Randi Sokol, MD, MPH, MMedEd, Tufts FMR
Award: $6,000 over 2 years

2018

Project: Integration and Optimization of Clinical Pharmacists as Clinician-Educators and Faculty Members Within Family Medicine Residency Programs: A Residency Program and Clinician’s Guide
Description: Clinical pharmacists are well-established within family medicine residency programs (FMRPs) as clinician-educators and faculty members. However, nearly half of FMRPs do not employ clinical pharmacists. Despite an established pipeline for highly-trained clinical pharmacist educators, fewer are trained specifically for faculty roles in physician training programs. Additionally, many existing family medicine physician faculty were not trained with clinical pharmacists as team members. Resources are needed to grow integration of these valuable clinician-educators and faculty members to support interprofessional team-based care and education. This project will establish resources to assist family medicine residency programs justify and utilize clinical pharmacists as well as create resources for faculty development specifically for clinical pharmacists for optimal integration
STFM Special Project Team: Pharmacist Faculty
Principal Investigator: Jennie Jarrett, PharmD, BCPS, MMedEd, University of Illinois at Chicago
Award: $ 8,000 over 2 years

Project: Racism in the Healthcare System: An Investigation of Institutional Racism, Racism from Colleagues, and Racism from Patients as Reported by Physicians of Color
Description: The research literature has been notably silent on the effects of racism on physicians of color (defined here as physicians from the non-dominant racial-ethnic group), despite instances of racism being well-documented in personal accounts. Thus, it is imperative to understand experiences of racism within the healthcare setting in order to inform interventions and create systems of support for physicians of color. In a mixed methods survey design, we aim to ask physicians about their experiences of racism from patients, racism from colleagues, and institutional racism. We also aim to investigate how racism affects work satisfaction, burnout, compassion fatigue, and secondary traumatic stress. We hope that the results of this study will provide empirical support for the effects of racism experienced by physicians, as well as serve to identify sources of support to help protect against encountering racism in the healthcare setting.
STFM Collaborative: Minority and Multicultural Health
Principal Investigator: Kelly Serafini, PhD, CDP, Swedish First Hill FMR, Seattle, WA
Award: $5,000 over 1 year

Project: Voices from Behaviorists in Family Medicine: Experience and Wisdom from the Past that Shapes a Future
Description: There is perhaps nothing more powerful as a tool for teaching then the “Story.” Stories allow us to enter into an experience, walk around, and develop insight and gain wisdom. It provides a means of moving from the simple instruction of information to hopefully the transformation of a learner, who is encouraged to see their world and their craft with a deeper vision. The stories of many senior faculty, who are “wisdom carriers,” have not yet been told or shared with many of us who are coming behind. In fact, several influential faculty have already retired with several others planning to retire in the coming years. The stories of these “Pioneers” give us an opportunity to hear where we have come from and reflect upon the struggles, growth, and potential for the future. We do not want to miss the contributions and wisdom that these early pioneers have to share with us, especially during this time of celebration. The intent of this project is to identify and interview a number of pioneer faculty who have shaped behavioral training in Family Medicine. These interviews or stories would not only be recorded but also disseminated to the larger Family Medicine community. This would allow us to capture our history, glean insight and wisdom, and perhaps shape and impact those faculty coming behind.
STFM Collaborative: Family and Behavioral Health
Principal Investigator: Thomas Bishop, PsyD, University of Michigan
Award: $7,200 over 2 years

2017

Project: Pre-matriculation Exposure to Pharmaceutical Marketing: Too Much, Too Soon?
Description: Pharmaceutical marketing is effective in changing behavior of health care providers resulting in less evidence based prescribing, decreased prescribing of generic alternatives, and higher prescription costs.1-7 Pharmaceutical companies interact with physicians-in-training during formative stages of their careers.8-16 In 2013, at a single private Midwestern medical school, 62% of students interacted with pharmaceutical marketers before matriculation.17 Unpublished 2016 data from the University of Washington shows 54% of pre-matriculated students interacted with drug marketers. This interaction occurred most often during shadowing in preparation for medical school application. Medical experience, such as shadowing physicians, is required by many schools, and the magnitude nationally of the exposure to pharmaceutical marketers before matriculation is not known. Where exposure exists, prospective students are in an awkward position without the experience or knowledge to manage this. If medical students matriculate already exposed to pharmaceutical marketing, it risks normalization of this physician/industry entanglement. There are educational and professional consequences that call –at least- for curriculum development and professionalism and ethics training early in medical school. We propose a national survey of medical students to examine the prevalence of pre-matriculation exposure to pharmaceutical marketing. We hypothesize that pre-matriculation exposure is widespread and occurs principally during shadowing and employment experiences.
STFM Collaboration: Humanities and Ethics
Principal Investigator: David V Evans, MD, University of Washington School of Medicine
Award: $3,000 over 1 year

Project: Preparing Medical Students and Residents to Work in Behavioral Health Integration
Description: Behavioral health integration in primary care is becoming more of the norm than the exception in the current US health care system. Family physicians comprise half of the primary care medical workforce and consequently are responsible for addressing many behavioral health needs. Most family physicians lack the training necessary to effectively utilize integrated behavioral health services. Family medicine educators need an evidence- and competency-based curriculum to prepare students and residents to work with behavioral health clinicians. The purpose of this multi-disciplinary, multi-site project is to design and evaluate a curriculum that prepares future generations of family physicians in behavioral health integration.
STFM Collaboration: Family and Behavioral Health
Principal Investigator: Matt Martin, PhD, LMFT, Duke/SR-AHEC Family Medicine Residency Program
Award: $9,000 over 2 years

Project: STFM Task Force on Residential Wellness: Developing Expert Consensus Guidelines on Curricula
Description: Physician burnout is increasingly being recognized as both a national epidemic and a threat to achieving the Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI) Triple Aim of improving patient experience of care, improving health of populations, and reducing the cost of health care. Burnout is linked to lower patient satisfaction, lower quality of care, higher rates of medical error, higher turnover, substance abuse and suicide. Contributors to burnout often begin during residency. There has been a welcome explosion of conference presentations on this topic; however few intervention studies exist. The field is its infancy with regard to the evidence of what is most effective. A Society of Teachers of Family Medicine (STFM) Task Force on Resident Wellness was recently created and proposes a partnership with a similar task force from the Association of Family Medicine Residency Directors (AFMRD). The primary aims of this project are to: (1) conduct a comprehensive literature review and gather existing FM resident wellness curricula; (2) identify and bring together thoughtful leaders to review the evidence and existing curricula using; (3) use a qualitative metasynthesis for this review and to develop common themes in existing curricula; (4) develop a concept paper offering expert guidelines on family medicine residency wellness curricula, mapped to the ACGME milestones; and (5) use the existing online platforms, available through STFM and AFMRD, to offer FM residency programs these guidelines and curricular tools.
STFM Collaboration: Family and Behavioral Health
Principal Investigator: Lauren Penwell-Waines, PhD, Roanoke Salem Family Medicine
Award: $8,000 over 2 years

2016

Project: The CoPRR Study: Community Preceptor Recruitment and Retention
Description: Preceptor recruitment and retention is a significant and ubiquitous challenge for Family Medicine departments. A push-pull framework can help identify factors that promote or impede community physicians serving as clinical faculty members and teaching as
preceptors. This project involves three components. First, we will conduct national focus groups of community physicians who are, or may become, preceptors to identify relevant factors and elements of the push-pull framework. Second, we will use Lean Methodology to rapidly test interventions and innovations designed to impact the push-pull balance and improve preceptor recruitment and retention. Finally, we plan to perform structured project team and participant debriefing sessions throughout our project to evaluate our experiences and determine if Lean Methodology is a feasible model for STFM to adopt for addressing pressing issues in medical education.
STFM Group: Medical Student Education
Principal Investigator: Amanda Kost, MD, University of Washing ton School of Medicine
Award: $10,000 over 2 years

Project: Pipeline is Policy: Building the Ladder
Description: The Ladder is an intergenerational, cascading mentorship program in Minneapolis that incorporates hands-on science fun with values and character development. The goal of this project is to disseminate the Ladder model in a way that is sustainable and adaptable to meet local needs and goals. This will be accomplished through creation and dissemination of a toolkit that will allow communities across the country to adapt The Ladder model to serve their communities and equip and guide youth on the pathway to becoming health professionals. This project addresses underrepresentation of minority groups in healthcare professions, and supports development of leadership, mentorship, and teaching skills of involved health professionals and students.
STFM Group: Health Policy and Access (Co-Sponsored by Latino Faculty and Minority and Multicultural Health)
Principal Investigator: Renee Crichlow, MD, University of Minnesota
Award: $10,000 over 2 years

Project: Photos from the Frontlines: A Cross-Institutional Exploration of Medical Student Experiences Using Photovoice
Description: The purpose of “Photos from the Frontlines” is to examine how the rural setting interacts with students’ clinical training. Using the participatory visual research method, Photovoice, from a cross institutional perspective, we hope to gain a better understanding of how rural and small town settings impact students’ learning, and intentions for future practice. Results from our study may provide insight into how rural training experiences shape perceptions of medicine through students’ identification with rural settings and community preceptors, to inform medical educators in the refinement of rural education programs to sustain students’ intentions for rural practice.
STFM Group: Rural Health
Principle Investigator: Carrie Roseamelia, PhD, State University of New York Upstate Medical University College of Medicine
Award: $4,750 over 1 year

2015

Project: Rural Workforce Development From the Perspective of the Family Medicine Resident
Description: Rural communities experience challenges in recruiting and retaining physicians. The Community Apgar Questionnaire (CAQ) was developed to help communities assess their strengths and challenges in recruiting and retaining physicians. This study will utilize the CAQ to assess the characteristics and parameters of rural and urban/suburban communities relating to recruitment and retention of family medicine residents. Results may inform medical schools, residencies, and rural communities about the factors that relate to recruitment of rural track physicians in training and potential retention as they begin their practices.
STFM Group: Rural Health
Principal Investigator: David Schmitz, MD, Family Medicine Residency of Idaho
Award: $5,000 over 1 year

Project: Quality Mentorship Through STFM
Description: The Groups on Latino Faculty and Minority and Multicultural Health share many common goals around increasing the number of underrepresented in medicine minority (URMM) faculty and improving health equity by addressing health disparities and the provision of culturally humble care. A diverse, resilient, proficient, purpose-driven, patient-centered workforce is necessary for the future of family medicine. A deliberate effort to nurture family medicine faculty and cultivate family medicine interest to meet population demands and promote the elimination of health disparities in the United States and abroad is essential. This planning project will explore the creation and implementation of a longitudinal faculty mentorship program and infrastructure for the Society of Teachers of Family Medicine (STFM). The long-term goals of this project are to enhance mentorship opportunities for STFM members, improve resiliency and retention of URMM family medicine faculty, and increase education and leadership diversity for STFM.
STFM Group: Minority and Multicultural Health and Latino Faculty
Principal Investigator: Joedrecka S. Brown Speights, MD, Department of Family Medicine and Rural Health, Florida State University, 
Award: $20,000 over 2 years

2014

Project: Competencies for Family Medicine Global Health Fellows
Description: There are currently no guidelines outlining competencies for global health fellows. This project will help define core competencies that will clarify fellowship training goals and create the basis for comprehensive and robust curricula evaluation of fellowships. The study will utilize a technique to achieve a consensus around these competencies among a diverse panel of family medicine educators with dual expertise in global health and medical/residency education.
STFM Group: Global Health
Principal Investigator: Fadya El Rayess, MD, MPH, B rown Family Medicine Residency, Pawtucket, RI
Award: $4,060

Project: State of the World: An Update of the Global Landscape of Family Medicine Training
Description: Nearly 2 decades have elapsed since the global status of family medicine postgraduate training was last described. The focus of this project is to update the typology of family medicine and postgraduate training on a nation-by-nation basis. The study will access and utilize information using an electronically based strategy to identify published materials. The main goal is to determine whether or not a nation has an active postgraduate training program for medical professionals that leads to a distinct family medicine-type qualification for the individual.
STFM Group: Global Health
Principal Investigator: John Tice Parks, MD, Georgetown University, 
Award: $4,920

Project: Implementation of a Model to Empower Family Medicine Patients to Achieve Recommended IOM Gestational Weight Gain Recommendations
Description: Excessive weight gain before and during pregnancy has considerable adverse effects on the short- and longterm health
of both the mother and child. Although the Institute of Medicine (IOM) has devised a set of recommendations and guidelines for health providers to gauge an appropriate gestational weight gain allowance for their patients, the issue remains of great concern in the United States. This project will evaluate whether a model developed to increase the familiarity and implementation of the 2009 IOM’s weight gain recommendations by family medicine providers and staff in their clinical practice will prevent excessive weight gain in already obese, overweight, or normal-weight women during pregnancy.
STFM Group: Family-Centered Maternity Care
Principal Investigator: Evelyn Figueroa, MD, University of Illinois at Chicago, 
Award: $9,597

2013

Project: Rural Workforce Development From the Perspective of the Medical Student: Assessment of Factors for Recruiting and Retaining Medical Students to Rural Communities Using the Community Apgar Questionnaire (CAQ)
Description: This study involves surveying third- and fourth-year medical students from geographically diverse institutions who are considering a career in family medicine using the CAQ to assess if differences exist on the CAQ factor importance ratings between those third- and fourth-year students who are planning to practice in rural settings versus those who plan on an urban or suburban practice. Results may be used to inform medical schools and rural communities about factors that relate to recruitment of rural track physicians in training and potential retention of those practitioners once they begin rural practice.
STFM Group: Rural Health
Principal Investigator: Alex J. Reed, PsyD, MPH, Family Medicine Residency of Idaho, 
Award: $5,000 for 1 year

Project: Strengthening International Family Medicine Faculty Development: Needs Assessment to Guide Developing Countries
Description: The purpose of this project is to define the core teaching and curriculum development needs of faculty during their first 3 years at family medicine residency programs in developing countries. Developing countries refers to any country where graduate training in the specialty of family medicine is emerging and does not necessarily denote economic or geopolitical status. The project will be conducted in three phases: (1) identifying core competencies necessary for faculty in family medicine residency programs in developing countries, (2) describing core curricular content of family medicine faculty development programs in the United States, and (3) establishing guidelines for teaching and curriculum development in family medicine residency programs in developing countries.
STFM Groups: Global Health and Faculty Development
Principal Investigator: Paul R. Larson, MD, MS, UPMC St. Margaret
Award: $10,000 over 2 years

Project: Virtual Minority Medical Student Outreach “Happy Hours”
Description: Medical school can be a stressful and trying time for most students and even more so for minority students who may feel isolated or under-supported. The intention of this project is to harness the best of virtual interaction technology and social media to provide a rich source of warm human emotional support, relevant information, and motivational encouragement to successfully navigate the many and unique challenges faced by minority medical students. The virtual happy hour project will directly foster academic development of minority physicians, provide mentorship for minority medical students, and facilitate a network for current and future colleagues through a series of monthly semi-structured 90-minute meetings in a virtual gathering space.
STFM Group: Minority Health and Multicultural Education.
Principal Investigator: Jeffrey Ring, PhD, White Memorial Medical Center Family Medicine Residency Program
Award: $5,000 for 1 year

2012

Project: Evaluation of the Extent and Methods of Public Health Training in US Medical Schools and Family Medicine Training Programs
Description: The goal of this project is to assess public health training curricula in medical schools and residency training programs by including questions on the CERA survey designed to determine the prevalent methods of delivery of required public health training.
STFM Group: Public Health Education
Principle Investigator: Jacob Prunuske, MD, MSPH, University of Minnesota-Duluth
Award: $10,000 over one year

Project: Increasing the Interest of Minority Students in Choosing Family Medicine through Mentoring
Description: The goal is of this project is to provide community preceptors (targeting minorities) in the Seattle area (AN12 location) with information that will assist them in their role as mentors for students and serving as a positive influence for Family Medicine. This will
be done by offering a special session for preceptors who have received a scholarship to attend AN12.
STFM Group: Minority and Multicultural Health
Principal Investigator: Judy Washington, MD, Women and Family Hea lth, New Jersey
Award: $7,150 for 10 preceptors to attend AN12 (carried over to AN13)

Project: Improving Education in Care for Those With Disabilities
Description: The goal of this project is to allow faculty from residency programs and medical schools with expertise in the treatment of patients with disabilities to design a unified curriculum which could be integrated into other sites. There will be 10 people on the curriculum work group.
STFM Group: Disabilities
Principal Investigator: Deborah Dreyfus, MD, Boston University
Award: $9,900 over two years

2011
Project: The SAGE Project: Assessing the Social Accountability of Global Health Experiences. Do Global Health Tracks During Family Medicine Residency Increase the Likelihood of Underserved Care?
Description: Given that an influx of newly insured will likely exacerbate current physician maldistribution, residencies will soon be evaluated on their ability to produce physicians for shortage areas. Surveys indicate Global Health Track (GHT) participants have increased interest in underserved care, but no studies have assessed whether participants are more likely to practice in underserved areas. This project will identify five residencies with well-established GHTs, determine whether their GHT participants are more likely to practice in underserved areas compared with nonparticipants, and create an evidence summary document that can be used to inform curricular decisions.
STFM Group: Global Health
Principal Investigator: Winston Liaw, MD, MPH, VCU Family Practice Center
Award: $9,732 over 2 years

Project: An Ounce of Prevention: How We Are Managing the Early Assessment of Residents’ Clinical Skills
Description: This STFM Foundation group project will survey family medicine program directors to discover what early assessment methods and activities are being used, benefits and costs of these methods, barriers to implementation of early assessment activities, and whether or not these assessments have been effective at identifying interns who will experience academic difficulty. This information will be used to develop a recommendation for early clinical skills assessment of residents.
STFM Group: Learners in Academic Difficulty
Principal Investigator: Tracy Kedian, MD, University of Massachusetts
Award: $8,150 for 1 year

Project: Identifying the Motivators and Challenges for Senior Faculty in Family Medicine
Description: The purpose of this project is to identify the personal and professional needs of senior (more than 55 years old) faculty to provide an enhanced forum and resources to support and engage this significant segment of STFM membership. This will be accomplished through both a survey and focus groups, yielding quantitative and qualitative data for publication and to inform educational programming decisions.
STFM Group: Senior Faculty
Principal Investigator: Jeff Stearns, MD, University of Wisconsin
Award: $8,500 over 2 years

Project: Rural Health Predoctoral Book Discussion Groups
Description: The goal of this project is to expose first- and second-year medical students to the realities of the practice of rural medicine today through reading and discussion of a recently published collection edited by the PI, The Country Doctor Revisited, a 21st Century Reader. Ten sites will be recruited from medical schools with affliated rural family medicine residencies. The project allows for early interaction between rural residency directors and medical students, creates opportunities for students to network with other students interested in rural practice, and to develop mentoring relationships with rural family medicine faculty. The students’ eventual choice of residency will be tracked.
STFM Group: Rural Health
Principal Investigator: Theresa Zink, MD, MPH, University of Minnesota
Award: $9,920 over 2 years

2010

Project: Behavioral Science Educator Fellowship
Description: This project will engage 12 newer behavioral science educators in small networking groups with experienced educators who will serve as mentors. The Fellows will learn to teach the core principles of behavioral science, will define the best practices in behavioral science core content, and will be involved in a task force to develop a national curriculum between 2011 and 2013.
STFM Groups: Family in Family Medicine and Behavioral Science
Principal Investigator: Deborah Taylor, PhD, Central Maine Medical Center FMR
Award: $10,000 over 2 years

Project: Women’s Abortion Experiences in the Family Medicine Setting
Description: The results of a cross-sectional study of 200 women undergoing first trimester abortion at four family medicine residencies will be used to inform programmatic and educational interventions to improve patient-centered abortion care in family medicine.
STFM Group: Abortion Training and Access
Principal Investigator: Justine Wu, MD, MPH, Robert Wood Johnson School of Medicine
Award: $4,955 for 1 year

Project: Survey of Medical Ethics Education in Family Medicine Residency Programs
Description: Program directors in the United States will be surveyed to determine details on the
prevalence, aims, content, teaching, assessment, and outcomes of formal ethics
education for family medicine residents. Survey results will provide pedagogical
guidance through the sharing of curricular information and highlight ways in which
ethics education in family medicine could be improved.
STFM Group: Ethics and Humanities
Principal Investigator: Helen M. Manson, MBChB, MRC, Dundee University, Scotland, UK
Award: $10,000 for 1 year

2009

Project: Online Training in Dietary Supplements for Family Physicians
Description: Many patients use dietary supplements, and physicians need evidence-based up-to-date information on the safety and efficacy of dietary supplements. This project will develop, evaluate, and market online continuing medical education modules on dietary supplements and three chronic health conditions: heart disease, diabetes, and asthma. These modules will be maintained and updated at the Boston Medical Center Department of Family Medicine and housed on the BU Distance Education for Health Web site. CME credit will be through BU.
STFM Group: Integrative Medicine
Principal Investigator: Paula Gardiner, MD, MPH, Boston University Department of Family Medicine
Award: $9,745 over 2 years

Project: Medical School Admission Policies and the Family Medicine Pipeline: Developing Practical Guidance Based on Analysis of Student Origins
Description: Many state medical schools have increased their efforts to recruit and matriculate out-of-state medical students in the past decade, while they simultaneously have experienced decreased numbers of students matriculating into the specialty of family medicine. Practical information is lacking on the relationship between student origin and medical specialty choice. This project will address this deficiency by analyzing data from the 10-year period prior to 1997, which saw a growth in the number of US seniors entering family medicine, as well as the 10-year period after 1997 in which a decline occurred. The project is designed to alleviate potential unintended consequences of current policies of admissions committees and to empower administrators to make informed decisions that will benefit underserved rural populations by increasing the recruitment of physicians from rural areas.
STFM Group: Rural Health
Principal Investigator: Richard Pretorius, MD, MPH , SUNY Department of Family Medicine, Buffalo, NY,
Award: $10,000 over 2 years

Project: Current Trends in Medical Education in Identifying and Treating Patients Exposed to Domestic Violence
Description: Residency Review Committee (RRC) guidelines state that each residency must have a structured curriculum in community medicine, including didactic and experiential components for the assessment of risks for abuse, neglect, and family and community violence along with a process to evaluate the curriculum and to document resident skill attainment. This project will survey family medicine departments with regard to the training of faculty, residents, and medical students in the assessment of these risks within the framework of ACGME and RRC guidelines. The results will characterize the field’s current focus, identifying systematic educational gaps in addition to deconstructing the components of innovative models that can be disseminated nationally.
STFM Group: Violence Education and Prevention
Principal Investigator: Peter Cronholm, MD, MSCE, University of Pennsylvania Department of Family Medicine and Community Health, 
Award: $4,000 for 1 year

2008
Project: Adolescent Health for Primary Care: Development of a Web-based, Comprehensive, Competency-based Curriculum
Description: The project will: 1) develop, implement, and evaluate a curricular instruction plan; 2) develop, implement, and maintain a peer-reviewed database of adolescent-related teaching resources through a link to STFM’s Family Medicine Digital Resources Library; and 3) house the curriculum on the Web to maximize access.
STFM Group: Adolescent Health
Principal Investigator: Francesco Leanza, MD, Beth Israel Residency Program in Urban Family Health, New York, NY
Award: $10,000 over 2 years

Project: Overcoming Obstacles to Writing for Family Medicine Educators
Description: This project will conduct four writing workshops open to STFM members, particularly junior, women, Hispanic, and minority faculty designed to support minority faculty, enhance their ability to recruit others to the field, and build capacity for research through strengthening writing ability.
STFM Group: Minority and Multicultural Health
Principal Investigator: Lucy Candib, MD, Family Health Center of Worcester, Worcester, Mass
Award: $10,000 over 2 years

Project: Teaching E-mail Communication in a Residency Program
Description: This project will develop a curriculum to teach residents how best to communicate via e-mail with patients while guarding patient confidentiality, safety, and imparting appropriate information in a suitable time to the correct recipient.
STFM Group: Information Technology—Heather Paladine, MD, University of Southern California
Family Medicine Residency, principal investigator
Award: $4,780 over 2 years

Project: Outgoing Third-year Family Medicine Resident Satisfaction
Description: This project will create and offer to all US and Canadian family medicine residency programs a confidential, objective, self-report questionnaire that will be administered online to graduating third year residents as a part of the exit interview process.
STFM Group: Behavioral Science
Principal Investigator: Timothy Spruill, EdD, Florida Hospital East Orlando, Orlando, Fl
Award: $5,000 over 2 years