Tracking family medicine graduates. Where do they go, what services do they provide and whom do they see?

The study cohort consisted of all U of T FM postgraduate trainees who started and completed their training between 1993 and 2003. This study was a descriptive record linkage study whereby postgraduate information for FM graduates was linked to provincial health administrative data. Comprehensiveness of care indicators and workload measures based on administrative data where determined for the study cohort.From 1993 to 2003 there were 857 University of Toronto FM graduates. While the majority of U of T FM graduates practice in Toronto or the surrounding Greater Toronto Area, there are FM graduates from U of T practicing in every region in Ontario, Canada. The proportion of FM graduates undertaking further emergency training had doubled from 3.6% to 7.8%. From 1993 to 2003, a higher proportion of the most recent FM graduates did hospital visits, emergency room care and a lower proportion undertook home visits. Male FM graduates appear to have had higher workloads compared with female FM graduates, though the difference between them was decreasing over time. A 1997 policy initiative to discount fees paid to new FPs practicing in areas deemed over supplied did result in a decrease in the proportion of FM graduates practicing in metropolitan areas.We were able to profile the practices of FM graduates using existing and routinely collected population-based health administrative data. Further work tracking FM graduates could be helpful for physician resource forecasting and in examining the impact of policies on family medicine practice.Family physicians (FPs) are viewed as the gatekeepers to the Canadian healthcare system. They provide comprehensive health care, continuity of care and coordinate care between different health care providers and health care sectors. Thus the Canadian government has been seeking strategies to address the concern that many people do not have a regular family physician [1,2]. In the late 1990s, there was a decline in the number of medical grad