National Resident Survey

2025 American Board of Family Medicine National Resident Survey

Rationale and Methodology:

The American Board of Family Medicine (ABFM) has a long history of collecting data from its Diplomates to evaluate its certification program, including residency training requirements. With growth in residency training programs and new flexibility in curricula design, ABFM decided to begin surveying residents in training in 2023.

The National Resident Survey (NRS) provides ABFM an opportunity to better understand, from the residents’ perspective, the current progress and challenges facing family medicine training programs, particularly during this period of implementation of new program requirements and competency-based board eligibility requirements. It also provides an opportunity for the specialty to better understand the current and future impacts of training environments on family medicine resident and physician well-being and practice.

The NRS was administered to all family medicine residents who completed the ABFM In-Training Exam (ITE) in October 2025. Of the 15,324 residents offered the NRS, 15,257 (99.6%) responded to at least one item in the survey and 15,192 (99.1%) completed the entire survey.

Each class of residents were given different questions.

Key Findings:

• While burnout continues to be a prevalent problem among residents, data from 3 years of the NRS (2023 through 2025) have found that burnout has gone down by nearly 10%. In 2025 residents reporting symptoms of burnout by class:

PGY1 = 39%
PGY2 = 46%
PGY3 = 43%

• The majority of PGY1 residents report they “signaled” the residency program (59%) and geographic area (72%) where they ultimately matched.
• The majority of residents report having baseline assessments in the first 3 months of residency with 84% of residents report taking an in-training exam, 54% taking an Observed Structured Clinical Exam (OSCE), 81% having direct observation (such as a Workplace Based Assessment), and 67% having an individualized learning plan (ILP). This was a significant increase from 2024.
• Only 74% of PGY2+ residents reported being directly observed caring for a patient in the last 2 weeks and only 82% reported having one on one feedback with a faculty member in the last 2 weeks.
• 45% of PGY2+ residents report spending more than 2 hours a night working on the EHR outside of normal office hours (pajama time).
• 90% of PGY3+ residents self-assess as reaching competence in the core outcome of diagnosing and managing common mental health conditions independently in practice.
• 71% of residents report using AI in the last month while only 36% report having education or training to use AI in healthcare in the last 6 months.

Publications Based on National Resident Survey Data:

1. Barr WB, Fleischer S, Peterson L. Family Medicine Residents Intentions to Provide Gender Affirming Care. Journal of the American Board of Family Medicine, 2024; 37(5):974-975. https://doi.org/10.3122/jabfm.2024.240077R1.
2. Barr WB, Peterson LE, Fleischer S, Bazemore AW. Do Residency Signals Actually Signal Intent? Insights from the 2024 Family Medicine National Resident Survey. PRiMER. 2025;9:44. https://doi.org/10.22454/PRiMER.2025.254617
3. Barr WB, Peterson LE, Fleischer S, Bazemore A. Pajama time and burnout: the burden of after-hours electronic health record use on family medicine residents, Academic Medicine, 2026;101(3):312-318. https://doi.org/10.1093/acamed/wvaf092
4. Barr WB, Peterson LE, Fleischer S, Bazemore A. Clerkship Rotations are a Key Driver of Family Medicine Choice: Insights from the 2024 National Resident Survey. Journal of the American Board of Family Medicine, 2025, 38(6):1136-1137. https://doi.org/10.3122/jabfm.2025.250160R1
5. Petty A, Barr WB, Bazemore A. Early Career Family Physicians Continue to Provide Maternity Care and Deliver Babies. Journal of the American Board of Family Medicine, Jan 2026, 39 (1) 159259.
6. Bazemore A, Barr W, Wheat SJ, Fleischer S, Peterson LE. Reported Intention to Work Part-Time Among Second Year Family Medicine Residents. Journal of the American Board of Family Medicine (in press)
7. Barr WB, Peterson LE, Owens S, Lin S, Bazemore A. Artificial Intelligence Use and Training in Residency: Results of a National Family Medicine Survey. Family Medicine (in press)
8. Barr W, Peterson LE, Owens S, Bazemore AW. State Restrictions on Medical Practice Influence Family Medicine Application and Ranking Decisions. Journal of the American Board of Family Medicine (in press)

2025 National Resident Survey Summary of Results