Determining the predictors of internal medicine residency accreditation: what they do (not what they say).

Purpose: The Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education and the Residency Review Committee for Internal Medicine (RRC-IM) evaluate internal medicine residency programs using a list of 301 program requirements. The authors investigated which requirements, program demographics, and site-visitor characteristics were the strongest predictors of accreditation.

Method: The authors surveyed the program directors of all 405 accredited internal medicine residency programs in February 1998, obtaining data on the duration of the accreditation process, site visitors, and number and quality of citations.