Residency ProgramsEmergency Medicine/Family Medicine

Curriculum & Innovation

Our Family Medicine Residency Program was chosen as one of 14 P4 (Preparing the Personal Physician for Practice ) programs in the nation whose training innovations will lead to transformation and inspire substantial changes in the content, structure and location of residency training.

Examples of changes that have been made to our first-year cirriculum

Exciting changes are under way throughout our program, and you will have an opportunity to learn about the most recent developments in this transformation during your interview. The major themes of the transformation are:

Enhanced training in high-quality ambulatory care

To ensure adequate training as experts in ambulatory care, residents will increase their time spent in the ambulatory setting caring for their patients. Immersion in outpatient medicine will include interns who have traditionally spent 90-95 percent of their first year caring for hospitalized patients. We have redesigned some traditional rotations that previously had an inpatient focus to reflect more relevant outpatient education.

Individualized curriculum and interest tracks

While our primary goal is to train residents in core family medicine, we strongly believe in nurturing the interests of residents. With our longitudinal curriculum, we are able to tailor the curriculum to an individual resident's needs and interest. This will allow residents to graduate with specific skill sets that will enable them to practice in their interest area.

Patient-centered care

Within our new curriculum, residents will forego traditional block rotations and will rely on their ambulatory patient panels to guide their learning.  When patients are deemed appropriate for referrals, residents will follow patients to these experiences. If a patient needs a cardiac evaluation, the resident will be present during the evaluation to learn from the cardiologist and truly co-manage the patient.  Following patients affords the ultimate opportunity for patient-centered care, as well as strengthening the physician-patient relationship.

Redesign formal lecture time

Our proposal calls for a redesign of dedicated formal education time. The traditional 1-2 year repeating lecture format will be replaced with a mix of lectures and interactive case-based discussions. The content of these discussions will again be dictated by patient care. We will focus on answering the clinical questions that arise from the care of our patients.

The goal will shift away from attempting to cover all topics, which is futile in our ever-evolving discipline. Emphasis will instead be placed on teaching residents the skills of information mastery to find patient-oriented evidence that will impact their practice.

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