Attracting Medical Students to Family Medicine: an Historical View

Background and Objectives: In 2018, the 25 x 2030 Collaborative was created. Its goal is to “increase the proportion of US medical school graduates who choose family medicine (FM) to 25% by 2030.” The purpose of this study was to take a deeper look at the history of medical student interest in FM from the earliest data to the present, both after the match and those who are FM interns after July 1. Methods: We used publicly available match data, primarily from the National Resident Matching Program website, a series of articles published for nearly 30 years in Family Medicine on match results, and the American Academy of Family Physicians website. Results: The total number of FM residents is growing (4,493 matched in 2021). After the managed care era in the mid-1990s, there was a collapse in interest among allopathic graduates that bottomed out at 6.8% graduates matching in FM by 2009; this rate has only slowly increased to 8.1% in 2021. Interest has been essentially flat for the last 10 years, and is lower than the percentage match rate prior to the managed care era (9.9% to 14.0%). There was more variability among osteopathic students, but interest has never been greater than 23%. Including the allopathic and osteopathic students who join FM residencies after the match does not appreciably alter these results. Conclusions: The 25 x 30 Collaborative will likely fail to reach its goal.