FAMILY TRADITION
ECU’s medical school ranked nationally for producing family physicians
The Brody School of Medicine at East Carolina University was ranked among the nation’s top five medical schools again this year for the high percentage of its graduates pursuing careers in family medicine.
The American Academy of Family Physicians calculates the annual rankings by averaging the percentages of each school’s graduates who entered family medicine residency programs over the past three years.
Brody ranked fourth on this year’s list, which is published in the October issue of Family Medicine, the journal of the Society of Teachers of Family Medicine.
This year, ECU’s medical school is the only one in the Southeast to make the top five – where it has now stayed for six consecutive years. Brody has been ranked in the top 10 since 2007. No other North Carolina medical school has made the top 10 during that time period.
An average of 16.7 percent of ECU medical graduates began training in family medicine over the past three years, according to AAFP calculations.
“This is evidence of our long-standing commitment to provide talented and committed primary care physicians for North Carolina,” said Dr. Elizabeth Baxley, Brody’s senior associate dean for academic affairs.
“The Brody School of Medicine was legislatively founded on a mission of producing primary care physicians, and we’ve effectively and efficiently delivered on that mission ever since,” Baxley said.
“Our focus on this mission begins with the pre-admissions process and continues through our selection of students who are most likely to pursue primary care careers. That focus then permeates the students’ entire experience here, as we expose them often to more holistic training and clinical experiences and role models who attract future doctors to this type of practice,” she said.
“We also are careful to hold the cost of a medical education at a level that allows our graduates to choose their specialty based on their heart, not their pocketbook,” Baxley added.
Approximately one in five of all medical office visits are made to family physicians, according to AAFP data. That totals nearly 192 million office visits annually — nearly 66 million more than the next largest medical specialty.
AAFP leadership believes filling the family physician workforce pipeline is vital to the health of Americans. At a time when the U.S. is seeing a decline in the numbers of physicians entering primary care, the academy reports that family physicians provide more care for America’s underserved and rural populations than any other medical specialty.
North Carolina in particular is reporting increasing shortages of primary care doctors in rural and economically depressed areas of the state. The Association of American Medical Colleges consistently ranks Brody greater than the 90th percentile nationally for graduates practicing in rural and underserved areas.
Of the 2,340 physicians who have graduated from Brody, more than half remained in North Carolina to practice – the highest percentage of any medical school in the state.
On average, nearly 60 percent of Brody graduates remain in primary care five years after graduation – also the highest percentage of any medical school in the state.
“Without strengthening the primary care base in our nation, we will not be able to improve the delivery of health care across the continuum of a patient’s life, nor improve the value of care we are offering – in both quality and cost-reduction,” Baxley noted.
Founded in 1947, the AAFP represents 124,900 family physicians, residents and medical students nationwide. The AAFP website defines the basis of family medicine as “an ongoing, personal, patient-physician relationship focused on integrated care.”
Family medicine encompasses comprehensive health care for individuals and their families, incorporating the biological, clinical and behavioral sciences, and encompassing all ages, sexes, organ systems and diseases.
According to the AAFP’s 2015 rankings report, primary care – which includes family medicine, general pediatrics, general internal medicine and obstetrics/gynecology – has been demonstrated to improve health care outcomes and reduce health disparities while also reducing health care costs.
Dr. Chelley Alexander, left, chair of ECU’s Department of Family Medicine, discusses an x-ray with Dr. Shannon Banks, Brody graduate and third-year resident in family medicine.