Background: Primary healthcare services and family medicine as a discipline in Germany are threatened by a growing shortage of family practitioners. Among different strategies for recruitment the family practice clerkship provides a possibility to inspire medical students for a career in family medicine. The aim of this study was to investigate the family practice clerkship's influence on students ' career planning. Methods: In a series of cross sectional studies between 2003-2014 2.667 students from the University Medical Center Freiburg participated in a questionnaire survey concerning students' career plans and their attitudes towards family practice before and after the clerkship. Results: The percentage of students who rated family practice as a career option increased from 56.3% prior to 68.3% after the clerkship. 22.9% rated family medicine as one of their top 3 priorities. Positive evaluations of the clerkship correlated with the plan to start vocational training in family practice (r = 0.425; < 0.001). Conclusions: These findings indicate a positive attitude of the majority of students towards family medicine and show a positive impact of high quality training. On the basis of our results we suppose that the potential of these clerkships can successfully be utilized in strategies for recruitment of future family practitioners.
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