692 November-December 2003 Family Medicine

family physicians. We conducted a survey3 of 143 faculty members of family medicine in Taiwan on this topic and found that neither ad-equate time in research nor an ad-equate amount of time spent in ambulatory care were significant factors for research activity or pro-ductivity. Instead, incompetence in research skills is the only signifi-cant factor identified with respect to research activity. We strongly recommend a sus-tained research training program in both graduate and postgraduate education for family physicians. In our series,2 two thirds of published articles were contributed by aca-demic family physicians working in the university environment. How-ever, since family practice is largely a community-based specialty, it is also recommended that collabora-tion with medical schools or guid-ance from the national association of family physicians is essential (eg, Web site resources, mentorship), so that family physicians at primary care settings can be more actively involved in research and publica-tion.