Health care evolution, if not reform, is inevitable. There is no doubt, however, that the Family Physician will be pivotal in systems emerging to meet the health care needs of the American people. This reality provides a challenge to the nation's Family Practice educational system to develop the resources that will be needed to train those physicians in sufficient numbers and with necessary skills. This strategic plan is developed to guide the discipline into the future. It is expected that it will bear reconsideration and potential revision in two to three years.

The Planning Process
In the summer of 1992, the Residency Education Subcommittee of the Academic Family Medicine Organizations (AFMO) Steering Committee was asked to consider the development of a Strategic Plan for Family Practice education as one of its "tasks" for that year. Representatives from the American Academy of Family Physicians (AAFP), the Association of Departments of Family Medicine (ADFM), the Association of Family Practice Residency Directors (AFPRD), and the Society of Teachers of Family Medicine (STFM) reached a consensus at that time that the importance of such a Strategic Plan was beyond the personal and logistical capabilities of that small subcommittee.

Although the challenge was revisited in several subsequent fora, no specific action was taken on this monumental task until February 1994 when the Commission on Education (COE) of the AAFP approached the AFPRD to take a leadership role in facilitating the creation of the Strategic Plan. On June 3, 1994, a Strategic Plan Working Group was assembled, and included the AFPRD Board of Directors, the AFMO Residency Education Subcommittee, and representatives from the AAFP COE, the Residency Assistance Program (RAP), the Association of Family Practice Administrators (AFPA), and a resident in training. With the assistance of Norman Kahn, MD, director of the AAFP's Division of Education, as facilitator, that group succeeded in coming up with the first draft of a Strategic Plan for Residency Education.

The draft plan then received additional editorial input from the AAFP Commission on Education (COE) and the AFMO Steering Committee, before coming back to the original Working Group in August 1994. At that meeting, the Strategic Plan was reworked into five General Objectives with Strategic Directions for each. Following editorial review by the Working Group, the organizations of AFMO, and again by the AFMO Steering Committee, the Strategic Plan for Residency Education in Family Practice was completed in September of 1995. The planning process for Family Practice education is a complex and lengthy one, and only those strategic objectives and directions of highest priority are included in this report. This is also intended to be a dynamic document, undergoing revision and updating as the health care environment evolves. We hope that it will provide some direction to that evolutionary process, therefore comments and suggestions are encouraged, and should be addressed to Norman Kahn, MD, AAFP. A heartfelt thank you goes to all those involved in this challenging project, the members of the working group, and the AAFP Division of Education.