Adolescent medicine: workforce trends and recommendations.

The academic successes of AM during the past 2 decades are marked by board certification, fellowship program accreditation, residency curricula creation, and the evolution of a remarkably respected scientific journal, the Journal of Adolescent Health. These same accomplishments have increased professional and public recognition of unmet population needs and the specialists who can help address them. The adolescent population is large, diverse, underserved, and characterized by increasingly complex medical and behavioral issues.

The future adolescent medicine workforce: a survey of current adolescent medicine fellows.

Purpose: To ensure a workforce of board-certified adolescent medicine (AM) specialists, the reasons why physicians choose this specialty must be understood. This study sought to develop a profile of AM fellows and to delineate common experiences that influenced them to seek AM training.

Methods: In April 2008, all AM fellows in Accreditation Council of Graduate Medical Education-accredited fellowships and those committed to begin training in July 2008 or after were electronically surveyed.