Disclosures: Alexandra Fry, MD: No financial relationships or conflicts of interest
Objective: To determine the influence of various programs on PM&R residents’ selection of the specialty of physiatry, including PM&R fairs, AAP-sponsored clinical (Medical Student Summer Clinical Externship) and research (Rehabilitation Research Experience for Medical Students) summer programs, local/regional/national meetings and conferences, advisors/mentors, school-sponsored career planning workshops and courses, and PM&R interest groups activities and events.
Design: A cross-sectional descriptive design was used.
Setting : A survey was sent to all ACGME-certified PM&R residency programs in the United States, open for 1 month.
Participants : Data was collected anonymously using a survey distributed to PM&R residents, including PGY1, through their respective program directors.
Interventions: No interventions were used during this survey-based study.
Main Outcome Measures: Participants were asked to rate the influence of each factor on a Likert scale of 0-3, with 0=no influence, 1=minimal influence, 2=moderate influence, 3=strong influence, and N/A=not applicable. Weighted averages for each factor were used for analysis.
Results: Respondents (n=175) graduated from medical school in the U.S. and the Caribbean. Advisors/mentors were selected as a “strong influence” in choosing physiatry for the majority (57.1%), followed by local/regional/national meetings and conferences (23.4%), PM&R interest groups (22.3%), and PM&R fairs (11.5%). MSSCE (2.6%) and RREMS (2.5%) were the least effective AAP-sponsored resources. Using weighted averages, every tested demographic group found advisors/mentors to have been the most influential. Conclusions: The data, limited by sample size, suggest that advisors/mentors have a major influence on the selection of PM&R as a career as well as highlight the importance of conferences and interest groups. AAP-sponsored programs such as PM&R fairs, MSSCE, and RREMS appear to be less influential. However, advisors/mentors and interest groups currently receive informal support and lack direct funding from the AAP. Therefore, boosting support to these programs is recommended to most effectively recruit an increasing amount of quality students into physiatry.
Level of Evidence: Level III
To cite this abstract in AMA style:
Fry A, Fry A. AAP-Sponsored and Other Programs that Influenced PM&R Residents to Choose Physiatry [abstract]. PM R. 2020; 12(S1)(suppl 1). https://pmrjabstracts.org/abstract/aap-sponsored-and-other-programs-that-influenced-pmr-residents-to-choose-physiatry/. Accessed May 30, 2025.« Back to AAPM&R Annual Assembly 2020
PM&R Meeting Abstracts - https://pmrjabstracts.org/abstract/aap-sponsored-and-other-programs-that-influenced-pmr-residents-to-choose-physiatry/