Effect of early exposure to family medicine on students' attitudes toward the specialty.

In the study reported here, the authors examined the influence of clinical experiences of students on their choice of family medicine as a specialty. Attitudes toward family medicine were investigated among 172 first-year and 174 second-year students at the University of Minnesota Medical School--Minneapolis. Neither early exposure to role models in family medicine nor the order in which specialty clerkships were taken had a significant effect on the students' choice of family medicine as a specialty.