Protocol for the Spring 2025 CERA Program Director Survey.

Abstract

Introduction: The Council of Academic Family Medicine (CAFM) Educational Research Alliance (CERA) is a collaboration of family medicine education organizations that supports medical educational survey research. CERA regularly conducts surveys of department chairs, clerkship directors, residency program directors, and other members of academic family medicine organizations. This article describes the methodology and demographic results of the spring 2025 CERA Residency Program Director Survey.

Methods: CERA received 18 module proposals in response to its call for submissions. After a competitive peer-review process, five proposals were accepted and included in the spring 2025 CERA Residency Program Director Survey. The survey included questions from these five research teams as well as standard demographic questions. The sample included all family medicine residency program directors identified through the CAFM member database and previous CERA surveys. CERA administered the survey from April 22, 2025 through May 23, 2025.

Results: Of 726 eligible program directors, 321 responded, resulting in a 44.2% response rate. The demographics of survey respondents did not significantly differ by gender, race/ethnicity, or self-identification as underrepresented in medicine compared to the sample of potential respondents.

Conclusions: This paper describes the methods and generalizability of the spring 2025 CERA Residency Program Director Survey. The demographics between survey respondents and potential respondents were not statistically significantly.