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362
J. L. Wilson
Developing theCurriculum
As you develop curricula, keep in mind these four tenets for ideal adult learning:
• Content must be relevant, realistic, and important.
• There should be direct, concrete experiences in which the learning may be applied.
• There must be an opportunity to practice and follow up.
• It should occur in a culture free of fear and judgment [19] The optimal EBM curriculum can meet these criteria if it
incorporates the following three elements:
• A strong foundation laid during orientation with an inter­active introduction to concepts and short-term practice
• Longitudinal, regularly occurring deep dives into the application of the concepts
• Day-to-day integration of EBM principles in practice with role-modeling by faculty
Introduction ofEBM Curricula
Begin your EBM curriculum on day 1 of residency. The expectation should be set that EBM is not just a way to prac­tice medicine but is the way to practice in your program. Orientation should reect the values of the program and gen­erally offers the most exibility to hold these introductory sessions.
Table 31.2 is a suggested schedule that can be used during
a 4-week orientation block to introduce the concepts of EBM.It is not exhaustive of all concepts a family physician should know but serves as a framework for early instruction about important principles with frequent opportunities to practice.
The introductory sessions should ideally follow the pro-
cess outlined in Fig.31.3. The sessions should be as interac­tive and clinically integrated as possible and should include opportunities to practice with clinical scenarios. The exam­ples covered previously are great ways to introduce the con­cepts of test characteristics, risk calculations, and basic EBM thinking. The previously referenced series by Barratt etal. in the CMAJ provides additional workshop ideas and details.
The introduction of new concepts should ideally happen
on subsequent days. Attempting to squeeze all of EBM into an afternoon or full day is a recipe for cognitive overload, poor retention, and little subsequent application. Short-term follow-up sessions (within a week) with brief opportunities (no more than an hour) to practice each concept will enhance understanding and retention. Finally, there should be an opportunity to bring it all together with sessions on the appraisal of medical literature and interactive case-based medical decision-making.
Table 31.2 Sample EBM Orientation Schedule
Week 1 Day 1 EBM pre-test Fundamentals of diagnostic reasoning—problem
representation and illness scripts Practice cases Day 3 Test characteristics (sensitivity, specicity, predictive
values) workshop with practice Day 5 Practice cases for this week’s concepts, introduce
likelihood ratios Week 2 Day 1 Risk workshop (RR, RRR, ARR, AR, NNT, NNH) Practice problems Day 3 Screening tests and evidence grading Practice problems (review concepts from risk workshop) Day 5 Case-based learning Week 3 Day 1 Developing PICO questions and practice Day 5 Case-based learning Week 4 Day 1 Journal club appraisal process Day 3 Journal club practice Day 5 Case-based learning EBM Post-test
Longitudinal Deep Dives
Maintenance is always more difcult than a concentrated introductory experience. Fortunately, there are several ave­nues to incorporate these concepts into what your program is already doing. There are resources available that can be incor­porated into the curricula. Ideally, you are linking the EBM concepts to medical decision-making in some manner.
Journal Club
Imagine what it would be like if residents were responsible for leading journal club sessions, waited until the night before to nd an article, “couldn’t really nd” the answer to the question, then ultimately picked a tangentially -related article from 1982 with a sample size of 32 and stood at the front of the room to talk at their peers and possibly a few attendings. Unfortunately, many of us don’t have to imagine this particular scenario and instead have been forced to sur­vive it. What happens then is a general sense of dread sur­rounding journal club. No one is really forced to consider
31 Teaching Evidence-Based Medicine
363
new hot-off-the-press medical information and its applica­tion to patient care, and EBM continues to be that thing that only nerds really get into.
But there are some programs that do journal clubs really well, and there is some help out there to avoid some of the pitfalls they can slip into. Here are some characteristics of highly-functioning journal clubs:
• Both residents and faculty attend and participate
• It is scheduled during the day as a routine part of didactics
(i.e., not an optional evening activity)
• A faculty champion holds residents accountable for
selecting articles ahead of time and coaches them on the
search/article identication
• It is not a lecture but rather an interactive conversation led
by the resident
• A formal or standardized approach to appraisal is
employed
• Participants have the article ahead of time and available at
the time of the session (most won’t read it beforehand)
• Food never hurts [20] (anecdotal evidences suggest baked
goods may be particularly effective)
Perhaps the most difcult part of journal club is arranging an adequate article selection. Without some signicant time dedicated to one-on-one coaching from a faculty member or medical librarian with some expertise, it is difcult to get residents to select a relevant article in a timely manner. One way around this is to have residents select from a pre-vetted list of articles like the ones in the American Board of Family Medicine National Journal Club available through the ABFM physician portfolio. The benets of doing so are numerous: the article has already been vetted for its relevance, it removes a signicant barrier of decision paralysis residents might experience, it offers some expert critique for the resident to review, and it offers points toward CME/KSA credit that fac­ulty and residents alike can take advantage of. The disadvan­tage, of course, is the lost opportunity to engage in the PICO question process or to recognize a poorly performed trial.
Regardless of the selection method chosen, having a stan­dardized appraisal process after an article is chosen is criti­cal. Having this process repeated each month will formalize the way residents read and critique an article by assessing internal and external validity via methods specic to the arti­cle type. The Centre for Evidence-Based Medicine offers examples of appraisal worksheets online for many study types and can be used as is or as a starting place to develop your own [21]. Trisha Greenhalgh’s How to Read a Paper is an excellent resource for an in-depth discussion on critical appraisal and also offers examples of appraisal worksheets in the appendices [2].
Below is a suggested timeline for your journal club session:
• At the beginning of the year: send out the schedule of who will lead the journal club on each date
• The week before: send out the article to all faculty and residents (and do so with heaping optimism they will all read it before the session)
• On the day
– Have several copies of the article printed and have
printed critical appraisal sheets available
– Divide the room up into small groups of no more than
4–5 individuals
– Have the small groups read the article (if they haven’t
already) and complete an appraisal form together; 15minutes
– The assigned resident leads a full group discussion
using the appraisal sheet; 15minutes
– If applicable, the assigned resident leads a full group
through the ABFM National Journal Club questions; 10minutes
– The remaining time can be used to discuss how the
group will or will not apply the results in practice
• After the session: as soon after the session as possible, contact the next resident about his/her assigned date to lead journal club and send weekly reminders about article selection and the process.
Family Physicians Inquiries Network
Family Physicians Inquiries Network (FPIN) is a subscription­based organization that provides a variety of levels of program membership. FPIN provides EBM educational tools (like online modules), workshops, and opportunities for profes­sional development for both residents and faculty. It includes opportunities for peer review, editorial skill development, writing opportunities, and leadership positions [18]. Many programs have successfully used FPIN’s tools to develop fac­ulty and resident scholarship and EBM-related education.
Case-Based Learning
Although not classically considered EBM-focused per se, case-based learning (CBL) is a practical and useful way to practice the implementation of EBM principles. CBL is typi­cally easy to implement into the didactic curriculum of a residency program.
Many programs have some version of a “morbidity and
mortality” conference that focuses on patient safety. While the focus of morbidity and mortality conferences (or their equivalent) tends to be on root cause analysis and systems issues, all of them offer opportunities to delve into medical decision-making and thus EBM.The key is to structure the sessions so they are not a presentation but rather a discus­sion. The resident leader should begin with the patient pre­sentation and then pause for audience input on what the next steps should be. This allows for discussion about building a problem representation and matching it to illness scripts and
364
J. L. Wilson
building a differential diagnosis (See Appendix: Problem
Representation and Illness Scripts).
Pretest probability, critical information gathering, test interpretation, and application of known evidence to the case can be revisited at each point a clinical decision needs to be made or there is a change in clinical status.
Additional case-based sessions can be held with a full emphasis on the decision-making aspects. These cases can be from your own program or, if you’d like something fully eshed out to save some time, there are multiple available resources out there. Both JAMA and NEJM have clinical cases that are presented in a stepwise fashion with a focus on build­ing the differential diagnosis and clinical decision- making to reach a diagnosis. My personal favorite is from the NEJM Evidence Journal Morning Report section [22]. These articles have downloadable slides of gures and are broken down into sections that are easily translated into an hour- long didactic session. The breaks within the articles are rich opportunities for small groups to discuss decision points. NEJM Resident 360 also offers interactive medical cases that could be used for this purpose, allows individual users to answer questions online as they progress through the case, and offers CME credit [9].
For an even more in-depth and data-driven experience, NEJM Healer is a subscription-based program focused on med­ical decision-making. It is a computer-based interactive practice tool to assess clinical reasoning and knowledge through the gen­eration of problem representations and matching them to illness scripts. Feedback about learner performance as it compares to expert diagnosticians is provided along the way [10]. For a lon­gitudinal individual experience, this is a great way for faculty to
track their personal progress toward mastery skills that are oth­erwise evaluated in a much less standardized way.
Day-to-Day Integration
The hardest part of teaching EBM is the day-to-day integra­tion throughout the program and creating a culture in which your faculty and residents have a shared mental model of how to approach diagnosis and treatment using EBM prin­ciples. To accomplish this, you must be deliberate and get buy-in from all faculty. Often, this will mean training them just as you train your residents. In fact, developing a shared mental model is probably impossible unless you offer the same learning sessions to faculty as offered to the residents.
And let’s face it: as previously mentioned, no one in the course of patient care—whether it be in clinic, the hospital, or labor and delivery—is going to sequentially complete all the steps outlined in Fig.31.1. But there are real, tangible strategies for keeping up a shared mental model and adher­ence to EBM principles in daily practice. We should help our residents become lifelong learners and practicing the princi­ples of EBM is one way to accomplish that. In the midst of clinical teaching, the teacher should judiciously select a small element of EBM and apply it to a given clinical encounter. Don’t try to do too much at once or your residents will become distracted and fall behind in their clinical work. Table 31.3 offers suggested prompts or questions for your faculty to use on-the-y with residents in clinic or other set­tings. These simple questions can lead to a rich discussion
Table 31.3 Examples of on-the-y EBM teaching prompts
Faculty script Discussion What is your problem representation? A good problem representation includes patient demographics, relevant past medical history, personal
risk factors, the pattern of illness over time, and key signs and symptoms that allow discrimination between conditions or development of a differential diagnosis. If the resident is struggling, sometimes you may offer a concise problem representation from what the resident has told you that allows them to match it to an illness script. Alternatively, you may identify key pieces of information missing from
their data collection that preclude formation of an adequate problem representation Can you match that problem representation to an illness script?
How can this patient expand your illness script?
Why are you ordering that test? Is it a diagnostic or screening test?
Why are you ordering that treatment? Is it based on a guideline? Data? Anecdotes? Biologic plausibility? Because they saw someone else do
Will the result change your management? What outcome are you aiming for? This question can be helpful to clarify thinking about a visit. Are we trying to decrease mortality?
If the resident has an inadequate problem representation, guide them to consider additional factors that
would allow discrimination between clinical conditions that may then lead to illness script-matching
If the resident has a good problem representation but can’t match it to an illness script, it may be
because they don’t have accurate or expansive enough illness scripts, or it may be a matching issue
Example: a resident doesn’t recognize molluscum contagiosum because there were only a few lesions
and none were umbilicated. This is a chance for them to expand their illness script to include pearly
smooth lesions without umbilication
All tests t one or the other category. If it’s diagnostic, it’s an opportunity to discuss pre- and post-test
probability. If it’s screening, it’s an opportunity to discuss the evidence behind that. If they aren’t sure,
they probably don’t need to be ordering it
it? Patient request, therapeutic/diagnostic trials, and other surprising answers may creep into the
resident’s reasoning. If nothing else, this is a chance for the resident to reect on their existing
knowledge. At best, it’s a chance to discuss evidence or develop a PICO question
If it won’t change management, don’t do it! This question invites a discussion about pre- and post-test
probabilities
Prevent morbidity? Simply comfort the patient?
This question can be asked before a visit as well. E.g., a patient presents to follow up for hypertension,
and the (or maybe one) answer is to decrease their risk of cardiovascular disease
31 Teaching Evidence-Based Medicine
365
and bring to the fore the importance of EBM principles in the approach to the patient.
For inpatient services, there is often more time to actu­ally complete the steps outlined in Fig. 31.1. Consider requiring your residents to develop a weekly PICO ques­tion, research it, and bring the evidence to the team for application. For optimal results, have the residents keep a log of PICO questions and best-evidence answers for the program. It will help hold the residents and program accountable, solidify the process of using EBM in practice, and create a repository of evidence the faculty and residents may refer to in the future.
Finally, you must have a way to measure if you’re devel­oping an EBM culture. If you’re just getting started, you’re going to have to hold educational sessions more often. Give your faculty specic tasks, specic scripts, and specic expectations. Then, to measure, survey your residents and/or faculty. It’s easy to measure how many lectures, workshops, journal clubs, and other sessions set aside for EBM teaching is occurring. However, the true learner-oriented outcome is whether your residents feel that their medical decision­making is inuenced and improved by their education and interactions with their faculty. Specically, if you have given
your faculty specic talking points or scripts, ask residents if they hear faculty using them in practice. Ask the residents how often they have discussions about pre- and post-test probability. The only practical way to know if EBM principles are being deliberately applied is by asking. Just like the educational process, do it early and often!

Curriculum Development Tips Summary

• Begin intern orientation with signicant time dedi­cated to EBM principles
• Include faculty in all learning sessions for residents and do so on a longitudinal and recurring basis
• Provide scripts for faculty to use (Table 31.4) in clinical settings and encourage implementation of EBM principles
• Assign faculty duties related to EBM-related learning
• Survey residents and faculty on EBM culture
Table 31.4 Problem representation exercise examples
Novice problem representation and illness
Patient-provided information 42-year-old woman, BMI 38, normal
vitals: I am having belly pain in the middle and right side that comes and goes. It makes me vomit what I eat and lasts for several hours, usually after I eat a large meal. I haven’t had any changes to my bowel movements. In between episodes I feel ne. It has been going on for several months but is getting more common and now is most days 61-year-old man with hypertension, dyslipidemia, gout, and tobacco use. He has hypertensive but otherwise normal vital signs: I am feeling short of breath when walking up the stairs in my house. It goes away after I rest a few minutes. Over the last few months, I haven’t had any pain. At night, I’m having to sleep in my recliner so I can breathe. I’ve noticed both ankles are swelling but I don’t have any leg pain 6-year-old with a history of recurrent streptococcal pharyngitis, temperature of
102.4F and otherwise normal vital signs., rapid strep test was negative. On exam, cervical adenopathy and tonsillar hypertrophy with erythema and white-grey exudate: Sore throat and fevers began 2days ago. His mother reports he has also complained about his stomach hurting and he has vomited twice. He has had strep throat four or ve times in the last 2years. Several children in his kindergarten class have been sick recently with sore throat
script matching My patient is a 42-year-old woman who
comes in with abdominal pain. Sometimes she vomits. She feels okay now. She could have gastroenteritis. She could also have an ulcer or pancreatitis. I would like to get a CT of the abdomen to evaluate
My patient is a 61-year-old with shortness of breath. He’s also had some swelling of his legs. He doesn’t have any pain. Pneumonia, COPD, asthma, and heart disease could cause shortness of breath. Because he’s had some swelling, I am also worried about DVT.I would like to get a chest x-ray and lower extremity Doppler to look for a DVT
My patient is a 6-year-old with fever, sore throat, abdominal pain, and vomiting. His strep test was negative. He could have gastroenteritis. He could also have appendicitis. We should get a CBC and abdominal ultrasound to see what is going on. We should also get a COVID test
Expert problem representation and illness script matching
My patient is a 42-year-old woman with obesity who presents with a subacute course of increasingly frequent post-prandial epigastric and right upper quadrant pain associated with nausea and vomiting. The episodes can last several hours and she feels well between them. She is afebrile and is not jaundiced. This is likely biliary colic. I would like to evaluate with a right upper quadrant ultrasound. Peptic ulcer disease is also possible but she doesn’t have risk factors for that My patient is a 61-year-old man with a history of uncontrolled hypertension and tobacco use who presents with subacute worsening dyspnea on exertion relieved by rest and orthopnea. He also has had some non-painful bilateral lower extremity edema. He does not have any chest pain or infectious symptoms. This is most likely a new diagnosis of heart failure, and I would like to evaluate with echocardiography. Chronic lung disease like COPD is possible but think this is a less likely cause of his presentation because of the orthopnea and lower extremity swelling My patient is a 6-year-old with a history of recurrent streptococcal pharyngitis who presents with acute onset fevers and sore throat, cervical adenopathy, and erythematous tonsils with exudate. He has had sick contacts at school with streptococcal pharyngitis. Despite the fact he had a negative rapid test for strep, his presentation is clinically consistent with strep throat and he is at high risk based on his personal history and sick contacts. I would like to proceed with treatment for strep throat and we can send the swab for culture. Infectious mononucleosis could cause similar ndings but would be less likely in his age group
366
J. L. Wilson

Institutional Involvement

Your electronic health record (EHR) probably gives you alerts on patients regarding cancer screenings, vaccination status, and other quality metrics. Find out how the decisions to include specic alerts are made and explore whether someone in your residency can participate on that commit­tee. If an ofcial process and/or committee is not in place, lobby for one. Having family physician representation on such a panel is not only important for the institution but is also an opportunity to practice EBM on a much larger scale than in the individual exam room.

Summary

EBM may seem daunting to both faculty and residents, partly because of the way it is introduced in medical school. Demystifying EBM early during residency and practicing it frequently is key to developing an EBM culture in your pro­gram. EBM is not a rigid, treat-everyone-the-same way of practicing medicine. EBM is not drawing out equations in the exam room. It is actually just a set of tools that improve a physician’s decision-making for individual patients. Once you get buy-in from residents and faculty on that, you are well on your way to developing a robust curriculum. Introduce EBM early, maintain it longitudinally using a vari­ety of formats in a variety of settings, employing andragogi­cal principles, and measure your results! After all, wouldn’t that be the evidence-based way to do it?
Appendix: Problem Representation andIllness Scripts
Embed EBM intheDiagnostic Process
Starting with a shared mental model of the diagnostic pro­cess and deliberately including it into a signposted EBM cur­riculum will highlight the applicability of EBM. Getting residents to truly believe that EBM is practical and useful, not an esoteric exercises in the ivory tower, is crucial. Two concepts that help in the development of a shared mental model of the diagnostic process are problem representations and illness scripts. Problem representations are concise, specic summaries of the dening features of a medical presentation. Good problem representations highlight the following:
• Patient demographics
• Relevant past medical history
• Patient risk factors
• Pattern of illness (length and tempo)
• Key signs and symptoms
In addition to those components, useful problem repre­sentations translate patient-specic data to abstract terms. For example, the length of illness may be described as “sub­acute” rather than “3 weeks long.” Paired, opposing descrip­tors are effective methods of thinking through a diagnostic problem and developing abstractions from patient-reported data (e.g., describing a cough as productive versus non­productive, a skin lesion as stable versus changing, or a patient as high- versus low-risk for cardiovascular disease). Encourage your residents to give you a “one-liner” or sum­mary of a case when precepting with you. This should take the form of a problem representation.
Illness scripts are mental representations of diseases and conditions. A fully eshed out illness script includes the following:
• Predisposing conditions
• Pathophysiologic basis
• Clinical consequence
The job of the diagnostician is to collect data, formulate a problem representation, and then match it to an illness script or develop a plan to discriminate among the list of diseases in the differential diagnosis [7]. This can either occur as an automatic process (pattern recognition in which an illness script is quickly matched) or a more deliberate, slow process that relies on the development of a differential diagnosis. These are known as the intuitive (Type 1) and analytical (Type 2) systems of reasoning according to dual-process theories of cognition [6].
Introduce the concepts of problem representation and illness scripts to your residents in the model of diagnostic reasoning shown in Fig.31.5 and quickly jump into practice­based exercises. You can give them a variety of starting points. Offer them patient-provided information and then challenge them in small groups to create the best possible problem representation. Another useful exercise is to give the residents patient-provided information and examples of imperfect problem representations and ask how a preceptor
Fig. 31.5 Model of diagnostic reasoning using dual-processing theory
31 Teaching Evidence-Based Medicine
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should work with the resident to improve the problem representation. Finally, when discussing a differential diag­nosis, ask what the groups’ illness scripts are for each condi­tion. Examples of problem representation exercises are described in Table31.4. These can provide a framework for developing a workshop and can be expanded as needed. It is also a helpful exercise for faculty to think about how they would guide a resident presenting an inadequate problem representation.

References

1. Sackett DL, Rosenberg WM, Gray JA, Haynes RB, Richardson WS.Evidence based medicine: what it is and what it isn’t. BMJ. 1996;312(7023):71–2.
2. Greenhalgh T.How to read a paper: the basics of evidence-based medicine and healthcare. Chichester: John Wiley & Sons; 2019.
3. US Preventive Services Task Force. Screening for chlamydia and gonorrhea: US Preventive Services Task Force Recommendation Statement. JAMA. 2021;326(10):949–56.
4. Barratt A, Wyer PC, Hatala R, McGinn T, Dans AL, Keitz S, Moyer V, For GG. Evidence-Based Medicine Teaching Tips Working Group. Tips for learners of evidence-based medicine: 1. Relative risk reduction, absolute risk reduction and number needed to treat. CMAJ. 2004;171(4):353–8.
5. Visual Rx. 2023. https://www.nntonline.net/visualrx/
6. Croskerry PMD, PhD.A universal model of diagnostic reasoning. Acad Med. 2009;84(8):1022–8.
7. Bowen JL. Educational strategies to promote clinical diagnostic reasoning. N Engl J Med. 2006;355(21):2217–25.
8. The Clinical Problem Solvers. 2023. https://clinicalproblemsolv-
ing.com/
9. NEJM Resident 360. 2023. https://resident360.nejm.org/
10. NEJM Healer. 2023. https://healer.nejm.org/
11. Evidence-based Medicine Toolkit. 2023. https://www.aafp.org/
pubs/afp/authors/ebm- toolkit.html
12. The Centre for Evidence-based Medicine. 2023. https://www.cebm.
net/
13. Guyatt G, Rennie D, Meade MO, Cook DJ. Users’ guides to the medical literature: a manual for evidence-based clinical practice, 3rd ed. NewYork: McGraw-Hill.
14. Viera AJ.Odds ratios and risk ratios: what’s the difference and why does it matter? South Med J. 2008;101(7):730–4.
15. Finding the evidence: a how-to guide. 2023. https://www.cebm.
ox.ac.uk/resources/ebm- tools/nding- the- evidence- tutorial
16. Family Medicine Residency Curriculum Resource. 2023. https://
www.fammedrcr.com/
17. Journal Club– American Board of Family Medicine. 2023. https://
journalclub.theabfm.org/
18. Family Physicians Inquiries Network. 2023. https://www.fpin.org/
19. Das K, Malick S, Khan KS.Tips for teaching evidence-based medi­cine in a clinical setting: lessons from adult learning theory. Part one. J R Soc Med. 2008;101(10):493–500.
20. Sidorov J. How are internal medicine residency journal clubs organized, and what makes them successful? Arch Intern Med. 1995;155(11):1193–7.
21. Critical appraisal tools. 2023. https://www.cebm.ox.ac.uk/
resources/ebm- tools/critical- appraisal- tools
22. NEJM Evidence Morning Report. 2023. https://evidence.nejm.org/
browse/evidence- article- type/morning- report

Teaching Practice Management

MaxBayard andJamesHolt
32
Key Points
• Practice management (PM) training has been required by the RRC for Family Medicine (FM) for many years.
• Many FM residency programs have struggled to provide good training in PM.
• Programs with an interactive approach result in a better experience for the residents.
• We describe our curriculum, which includes a strong interactive component.

Background

Residency training in Family Medicine prepares future fam­ily physicians to handle all clinical aspects of practice: well care and disease management, inpatient and outpatient, rou­tine and emergent care. Family Medicine training also includes a mandate to prepare residents to manage a medical practice, that is, practice management; this contrasts with other medical specialties. In fact, for many years, the ACGME Residency Review Committee for Family Medicine had specic time requirements for training in Practice Management.
There have been some changes over the years in the
ACGME requirements for practice management training in family medicine residencies. In the early 2000s, programs were required to provide 60hours of practice management training to family medicine residents. This was increased to 100 hours of “health systems management experiences, designed to prepare residents to be active participants and leaders in their practices, their communities, and the profes­sion of medicine.” New guidelines became effective in July 2023, stating that residents must have a “dedicated experi-
M. Bayard · J. Holt (*) East Tennessee State University Quillen College of Medicine, Johnson City, TN, USA e-mail: BAYARD@mail.etsu.edu; HOLTJ@mail.etsu.edu
ence” in health systems management [1], but the specic number of hours was removed.
There is little information in the medical literature addressing family medicine practice management training. Family Medicine residency directors were surveyed in 1999. In this study, Program Directors’ rating of the effectiveness of their practice management education was positively asso­ciated with increased time commitment and active learning strategies [2]. One residency program published their cur­riculum and demonstrated that a simulated practice approach is more helpful than a standard didactic curriculum [3]. A systematic review of residency practice management curri­cula concluded that there were few published studies of the outcomes of practice management-related curricula. The authors recommended that training programs should evalu­ate the results of their programs and publish these results [4].
History ofOur Curriculum
Around the year 2000, we were challenged by our residents to improve our practice management (PM) training. Prior to that time, the PM “curriculum” consisted of a 2-day didactic work­shop at the beginning of the PGY2 year and monthly 4-hour sessions during the PGY3 year when residents would meet informally with local physicians to discuss issues related to managing a medical practice. A survey was created to assess residents’ knowledge/comfort of 13 areas recommended in the American Academy of Family Physicians (AAFP) Curriculum Guidelines for Family Medicine resident training in PM.Of these 13 areas, residents scored poorly in all but one (determining and balancing personal and professional goals). Believing that people learn better from doing than from hear­ing, we developed a curriculum that had many more “hands­on” activities by the residents. The initial response by the residents to this new approach was enthusiastic. A more in­depth review of this initial curriculum can be found in an arti­cle published in the journal Family Medicine [5].
© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2025 R. Kellerman, G. Irwin (eds.), Graduate Medical Education in Family Medicine, Excellence in Medical Education 2,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-70741-4_32
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M. Bayard and J. Holt
The curriculum still is built around the development of a virtual practice by the residents. Although the actual topics covered and the time allocated have evolved over the last 20years, the virtual practice has been the core of the experi­ence. It is like a “hub”: interactive didactics are presented, and that information is then taken and applied to their virtual practices. Similarly, they apply research on practice styles, personnel issues, marketing, and so on. Residents directly benet from the information they are given, as they apply it to “building” their virtual practices.
Residents frequently cite the PM curriculum as being a high point of their residency training. They are engaged with visiting presenters, as they take the information presented and apply it to their practices. They huddle up together in the dedicated “free” time to seek out answers to questions they come up with about the business of medicine. The following is a description of the current state of our Practice Management curriculum.

Current Curriculum

Timing andSchedule
didactics four or ve half-days a week. Any remaining time is available for the teams to work on their virtual practices. During this block, PGY2 residents have minimal hospital call responsibilities. Annual leave is not permitted during this block.
Activities
Two primary activities take place during the PM block: a quality improvement project and development of the virtual practice. For these projects, the residents form two groups of three residents each. A description of these two projects is below.
An additional activity during this month relates to resi­dent leadership. A didactic panel session focuses on physi­cian leadership roles. PGY2 residents are presented with opportunities for leadership roles as they transition to PGY3 residents. In our program, each PGY3 resident has an area of leadership. These areas of leadership, in addition to two chief residents, are as follows: patient safety, community, resident wellness, research, and recruiting.
Our PM rotation is a block rotation in the middle of the PGY2 year. It is the 8th of 13 blocks, generally starting in late January and lasting for 4weeks. We had previously done a longitudinal rotation, but the block has many advantages. These include scheduling all the PGY2 residents simultane­ously, coordinating continuity clinic, faculty scheduling, and several other benets. In addition, it’s a nice opportunity for the PGY2 class to get back together for a month and collabo­rate on their projects. Of course, it’s also socially nice to have minimal hospital responsibilities and just to be able to spend this month together with their peers.
The timing of the rotation (mid-PGY2 year) is not ran­dom. At this point in their training, residents are thinking seriously about their future practices; however, many of them have not yet committed to a practice. Because our hos­pital service consists of a PGY3, a PGY2, and a PGY1 resi­dent, we have to do this in a block in which two PGY1 residents can serve on the team with a PGY3, as all PGY2s will be doing PM together. The 8th block of the year works well as all PGY1 residents have had a minimum of 6weeks’ hospital coverage and are prepared to contribute well to our inpatient service.
The schedule during the PM block includes time for rou­tine residency responsibilities as well as dedicated PM activ­ities. In addition to our residency program’s regular weekly didactic half-day, residents will see continuity patients two or three half-days per week. They will engage in interactive
Quality Improvement Project
Quality Improvement (QI) is addressed on the rst day of the PM block. This is an interactive didactic experience in which residents are initially presented with principles of QI from the Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI). These can be found on the IHI website [6]. The Model for Improvement is discussed with residents. There are two parts of The Model. First ask three questions, which can be asked in any order:
• What are we trying to accomplish?
• How will we know that a change is an improvement?
• What change can we make that will result in improvement? Second is to test these changes using the PDSA cycle
(Plan–Do–Study–Act).
During this session, residents break out into two groups
of three (we have six residents per PGY year). They are charged with trying to come up with as many things as they can that could use improvement. In consultation with PM course faculty, they choose one area for which they would like to do a QI project. They have 1week to fully design the project. This leaves them two more weeks during this PM block to work on the projects. This has generated a lot of enthusiasm, as they are also encouraged to turn these proj­ects into scholarly presentations at one or more regional conferences. This project also fullls requirements by the ACGME and the ABFM.
32 Teaching Practice Management
371
Virtual Practice Instructions
The virtual practice is an assignment that begins on the rst day of the block and continues throughout the 4weeks. Over the 4weeks, residents engage in didactics and group research and develop their practices, generally in a PowerPoint format (though paper would be acceptable). These practices are then presented during the last week of the block. Faculty, Department Chair, and other residents attend the formal presentation.
Topics to be addressed in the presentation include the
following:
1. Type of practice (fee for service, direct primary care, etc.)
2. Practice location
3. Employees
(a) Number of employees (i) Number of providers and their credentials (i.e.,
physician, nurse practitioner, etc.)
(ii) Number and educational expectations of clinical
support staff (iii) Number of administrative staff (b) Job descriptions for employees (c) Salaries and benets
4. Services offered (a) Procedures to be performed (b) Location of services (inpatient, outpatient) (c) Clinic hours or other availability
5. Detailed budget (a) Expected income based on appropriate E/M coding (b) Other sources of income (i) Procedures (ii) Merit-based (iii) Direct primary care fees, if applicable
(iv) Hospital guarantee (v) Others (c) Expenses
6. Electronic health record In addition to the above expected components of the prac-
tice, some residents have been creative and have added fun extras, such as designing brochures for the practice, creating drawings of the building, and drawing oor plans.
This development of the virtual practice is the cornerstone
of the PM month. Residents are engaged with the presenters, as they will take the information presented and apply it to their practices. Obviously, only a percentage of the sessions directly relate to the virtual practices, but we feel the overall enthusias­tic atmosphere during this month is attributed to the active involvement of the residents in the learning experience.
Presenters
Didactics are primarily presented by local physicians as well as individuals in a variety of business disciplines. For the most part, these are representative of professionals who can be found in nearly any region. Within our residency faculty, we have two faculty who have signicant private practice experience, including having started medical practices. The primary exception to speakers being local is a two-day ses­sion that is led by our primary medical liability carrier in Tennessee, State Volunteer Mutual Insurance Company (SVMIC). Among the services SVMIC offers, in addition to liability coverage, are practice management and human resource assistance. They volunteer their time to present a number of topics related to management, human resources, and legal issues. See the table below for a listing of present­ers and topics.
Practice Management Didactic Sessions
Topic Presenter Description Intro to PM Course Director Overview of course
Intro to QI Course Director QI Principles from IHI
Hospital nances Local hospital
CFO
Interviewing University HR
representative
Basic accounting Local CPA Business structures for medical practices (LLC, partnership, etc.)
“Game” of Practice Management Jeopardy
Residents individually consider possible improvement projects Residents gather in small groups and decide on a project Not-for-prot hospital structure Industry healthcare insights and challenges DRG reimbursement methods Effect of physician shortage on hospitals Effect of coding and documentation on quality and nances Inpatient and outpatient services and how margin is generated Interviewing basics: both in applying for a job and in interviewing potential employees
Basic accounting methods Tax and record-keeping responsibilities
(continued)
372
Topic Presenter Description Contracts/FM
incentives
Direct primary care (DPC)
Large group practice
Contracts Local lawyer with
Hospital recruiting and stark laws
Insurance denials Residency
Managed care MBA (SVMIC) Fee for service vs. value-based care
Revenue cycle management
Governance Lawyer (SVMIC) Administration of a medical practice
Personnel Practice
Financial management
Physician employment options Dealing with difcult patients
Lean methods gain efciency
When things go wrong
Delivering exceptional experience Time management for leaders Physician leadership/ communication Inuence Your culture Human trafcking Leadership Physician Panel Leadership experiences
COO of local multispecialty group 3 Tennessee physicians in solo DPC practices Local physician, member of large Family Medicine group
physician contracting expertise Local hospital physician recruiter
nancial administrator
MBA (SVMIC) Basics of policies to consistently collect co-pays
administrator (SVMIC) Practice administrator (SVMIC) Practice administrator (SVMIC) Practice administrator (SVMIC) Practice administrator (SVMIC) Malpractice Lawyer (SVMIC)
Practice administrator (SVMIC) Practice administrator (SVMIC) Lawyer (SVMIC) Physicians are leaders
Lawyer (SVMIC) Detecting a practice’s culture
Nurse (SVMIC) The scope of the problem of human trafcking
Benets of large group practice Negotiating contracts with insurers Quality-based performance bonuses Basic DPC model and potential variations Starting or transitioning to a DPC model Clinic and nancial benets to patients Advantages and disadvantages of a large group practice from the physician’s perspective Capturing bonuses for quality Leadership opportunities in a large group
Presentation of major areas of physician employment contract Recommendations for approaching contract negotiations “Red ags” in contracts offered
Stark laws: what is forbidden and “safe harbors” Structure of hospital- sponsored salary guarantee Tips for working with recruiters Common reasons for insurance denials Tips to minimize denials Tips to quickly turn denials around
Common business structures for these contracts
Submission of “clean claims” Monitoring the nances of a medical practice
Physician roles: both leadership and membership Resolving problems which can arise Hiring and retaining good employees Policies/employment manual/job descriptions Promoting teamwork Measures to improve reimbursement Financial efciency in practice
Approach to physician employment contracts What to look for in a contract; “red ags” Areas to negotiate Four “archetypes” of challenging patients Recommended approaches to get best results
How to identify waste in processes Basics of thinking “lean” Searching for and minimizing waste Recommendations for managing poor patient outcomes If Standard of care is not breached If Standard of care is breached Measures, both simple and complex, to improve the patient experience The importance of an exceptional patient experience
Time management for very busy people Ensuring that priorities are met
Communication methods, and which are best
Changing a suboptimal culture
Recognizing a possible victim of human trafcking
“Horror stories”: personal experiences when things went wrong
M. Bayard and J. Holt
(continued)