The first year of training emphasizes the foundations of inpatient care,
common ambulatory problems, emergency room skills, and child development.
The second year promotes leadership with supervisory inpatient experiences,
a weekly seminar in behavioral science and psychiatry, training in dermatology,
and the musculoskeletal system. Residents also participate in a unique
one-month Community Medicine rotation, focusing on patients, families,
and their communities. The third year emphasizes comprehensive ambulatory
practice, cardiology, geriatrics, and electives.
Throughout the three years, residents develop a continuity practice at the Family
Medicine Center.
First-year residents follow their own patients at least one half-day per week; second- year
residents three to four half-days per week; and senior residents four to five half-days per week.
During the third year, each resident has two rotations as office chief, with daily management
decisions and responsibilities of a busy community family practitioner. Practice management is an
integral part of training.
Continuity of care is emphasized throughout the three-year curriculum. With the supervision of
family medicine faculty, residents follow their office patients who become hospitalized and provide
the prenatal, delivery, and post-natal care for women and infants from their practice. Geriatrics
is integrated throughout the residency and supplemented with patient care at an extended care
facility and a geriatric clinic.
Residents spend two blocks in each year on the Family Medicine Inpatient Service, covering patients
from the Asylum Hill Practice and from other family physicians. Second year residents assume
supervisory responsibility for our first-year house officers in medicine. In pediatrics, family
medicine residents are the sole house staff.
On all rotations family medicine residents are given patient care responsibilities that are equal to
other categorical residents. In the hospital, 24 hour IV and blood drawing teams and a new
computerized laboratory system are available to maximize time for clinical problem solving,
teaching, and learning.
Special curriculum and dedicated time is provided for other important areas of professional training
including evidence based medicine, occupational health, radiology, and practice management, among
others.
We are committed to adult learners and the fact that individuals develop along different paths
within family medicine. We have worked to maximize elective time and to maintain curricular
flexibility to enable residents to pursue their own special interests. We have recently had
residents rotate in rural Washington state, in Mexico, and in a small regional hospital in Nepal.
We believe these experiences enrich all of us.
