Financial incentives in residency recruiting for primary care: scope, characteristics, and students' perceptions.

Background: One response to the decline in interest among medical students in residency training in primary care has been the offering, by residency programs and hospitals, of financial recruitment incentives to medical students during their residency interviews. Few data on the breadth and effectiveness of this practice have been available.

Method: To gain insight into how hospitals and/or programs offered incentives, the authors compared 1990 and 1992 survey data on this topic from the members of the Association of American Medical Colleges' Council of Teaching Hospitals (AAMC/COTH) with 1992 data from the members of the Association for Hospital Medical Education (AHME), employing responses to identical questionnaire items.