Residents did self-assessments at the beginning of the second year and at the end of the third year of the curriculum about their achievement and their level of cultural competence. Faculty's evaluations of residents' levels of cultural competence correlated significantly with the residents' final self-evaluations. SFamily practice residents' cultural knowledge, cross-cultural communication skills, and level of cultural competence increased significantly after participating in a multicultural curriculum. The medical school characteristics we consider are administrative support, special programs, primary care funding, number and quality of primary care faculty, faculty influence, primary care residencies, committee representation, primary care environment, required time, and student contact. This model provides explicit hypotheses to be tested in future research on specialty choice.
Satisfaction is known to impact work performance, learning, recruitment, and retention.
This study identifies the factors associated with primary care residents' satisfaction with their training. The model included 14 job characteristics, four personal characteristics, and four demographic factors. The same standardized, self-administered questionnaires were used in all three departments. Role conflict, a sixth job characteristic, was negatively associated with satisfaction. The personal characteristic of having an optimistic outlook on life was also positively associated with satisfaction.