Curriculum
The content of family medicine training is specified by the Accreditation Council of Graduate Medical Education and the American Board of Family Medicine. Each specialty rotation is designed to maintain flexibility and to meet accreditation and board requirements. The curriculum is reviewed continuously to meet the present and future needs of our residents. The primary objective is to aid you in personal growth while acquiring the knowledge and skills necessary for obtaining a high level of professional competence.
Procedural skills have become increasingly important in the ambulatory setting. For this reason, our program has focused on providing residents with opportunities to learn a variety of office procedures including colposcopy, casting and splinting, joint injection, lesion removal, and other minor surgical procedures. Advanced procedures including stress testing, endoscopy, obstetrical ultrasound, etc. are available
The foundation of the resident's education is the patient care provided in the Family Medicine Clinic and on the Family Medicine Teaching Service. Residents develop and maintain a continuing physician-patient relationship. Residents see patients in the Family Medicine Center 1-2 half days per week as first years, 3-4 half days per week as second years and 4-5 half days per week as third years.
As part of the educational experience residents have the opportunity to select a total of six months of elective time during the three years of training. Elective time is flexible to accommodate the differing career paths and interests of individual residents. Elective blocks vary in length from 2 weeks to 1 month. Residents have the opportunity to experience such electives as allergy, anesthesiology, cardiology procedures, dermatology, gastroenterology, general internal medicine, hematology/oncology, hospice and palliative care, industrial medicine, neurology, obstetrics, plastic surgery, podiatry, nephrology, pulmonology, rheumatology, and sports medicine, just to list a few.
Residents have an opportunity to design a rotation not routinely offered, such as an international rotation, or a clinical rotation not normally provided in our curriculum. Over the last several years, many of our residents have taken advantage of this opportunity.
Our Family Medicine Teaching Service (TS) is our inpatient medicine team. The Teaching Service team is responsible for admitting patients from the Family Medicine Residency as well as the community at large. We share admitting duties with the MercyOne Medical Center Hospitalist group. The TS team consists of an intern, 2nd and 3rd year resident and faculty physician. The team is joined by our faculty pharmacist, faculty psychologist, pharmacy students and medical students. Residents on this service also carry the hospital code pager and respond to code blues and rapid responses on the medical floors and stroke alerts in the emergency department.
