Abstracts from the Proceedings of the 2007 Annual Predoctoral Meeting of the Society for Teachers of Family Medicine (STFM).

The Society for Teachers of Family Medicine (STFM; http://www.stfm.org) is a community of professionals devoted to teaching family medicine through undergraduate, graduate, and continuing medical education. This multidisciplinary group of physicians, educators, behavioral scientists, and researchers works to further STFM's mission of improving the health of all people through education, research, patient care, and advocacy. STFM holds an annual conference each spring and a predoctoral education conference each winter. STFM held its 33rd annual Predoctoral Education Conference in Memphis, Tennessee, from January 25 to 28, 2007. Elizabeth Garrett, MD, MSPH, professor and predoctoral director in the Department of Family and Community Medicine at the University of Missouri, Columbia, opened the conference with a stirring plenary about the direction of family medicine and the legacy we, as predoctoral educators, must create in the future of our students. Thomas Schwenk, MD, chair of the Department of Family Medicine at the University of Michigan, discussed the implications of training students in the era of new technologies and innovative approaches to delivering family medical care. Laurence Bauer, MSW, MEd, clinical associate professor in the Department of Family Medicine at Wright State University, delivered a motivating talk about funding opportunities from private foundations. Participants shared ideas and learned new skills in more than 65 workshops, seminars, and discussions as well as 38 education research and evaluation papers. Unifying themes included LCME ED2 (Educational Directive) requirements, community medicine, technology in medical education, preceptor development and learner and program evaluation. From the educational research or curriculum evaluation papers presented at the conference, a subcommittee of the STFM Education Committee selected 12 papers that we felt would be of interest to readers of Teaching and Learning in Medicine. These papers represent completed studies involving undergraduate medical education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]