Using private practice settings for academically intensive family practice clerkships.

The Department of Family Medicine and Practice at the University of Wisconsin has designed and conducted an academically intensive third-year three-month family practice clerkship based in private practice settings. This experience differs from more traditional preceptorships in the amount of academic structure and quality control applied to the student's learning experience. This clerkship has demonstrated that extramural experiences can be as academically intensive and carefully monitored as traditional, referral-hospital-based clerkships in family practice or other basic medical disciplines. Increases in the level of continuity of care occur over the entire 12 weeks.