Third Year Core Clerkship: Family Medicine

The Family Medicine Clerkship is a required four-week rotation. Students are placed in a community or residency site and become an integral part of the health care team.

The clerkship emphasizes strengthening competencies in history taking, physical examination skills, problem differentiation, disease prevention and management, written and oral presentations. In applying these basic skills the student will develop an understanding of the concept of a medical home in patient care: comprehensive, patient-centered, longitudinal primary care.

Working one-on-one with family physicians, students will integrate knowledge of the basic sciences with the biopsychosocial factors that critically impact a patient’s experience of illness and health in the care of the patient.

Clerkship Objectives

The overall purpose of the third year Family Medicine Clerkship is to foster student knowledge of and familiarity with the family medicine method of health care delivery and the role of the family physician in both the local and medical communities. You will be introduced to the core concepts of Family Medicine, including the concept of the Patient Centered Medical Home (PCMH.)

The major vehicle for this education is exposure to practicing family physicians and their patients. The clerkship experience has been designed to assist each student in refining proficiencies necessary for life-long learning. Areas targeted for skill building are the core competencies laid out by the ACGME including patient care, medical knowledge, interpersonal and communication skills, system-based practice, practice-based learning and improvement, and professionalism.

Third-Year Additional Opportunity

Geriatric Medicine Elective
This course provides students with an introduction to the basic principles of providing safe and effective care to frail older adults as part of an inter-professional team. It includes experiences on an inpatient geriatric medicine special care unit, in an outpatient geriatric assessment clinic, in community nursing homes, and in a community agency for the aged / home care.