M3 Family Medicine Clerkship
Goals and Objectives
Goal
To help students refine basic clinical skills that are essential to practicing family medicine effectively.
Students will:
- Demonstrate patient interviewing skills in various clinical settings.
- Practice physical examination skills.
- Refine patient interaction and clinical communication skills.
Goal 2
To develop students' knowledge and skills related to common office procedures performed in the family physician's practice.
Students will:
- Recognize indications for office procedures.
- Demonstrate technical skills for performing common office procedures.
- Interpret the reliability of common office procedures.
- Identify potential complications of invasive office procedures.
Goal 3
To give students practice in using a primary care approach to the diagnosis and management of problems commonly seen in the family medicine setting.
Students will:
- Demonstrate appropriate knowledge of commonly seen problems.
- Organize information, record data, formulate a differential diagnosis, and design/investigate further treatment plans.
- Recognize serious, life-threatening conditions early in the encounter with acutely/chronically ill patients.
Goal 4
To increase students' knowledge of the principles and applications of health promotion and disease prevention in the family medicine setting.
Students will:
- Identify and develop health promotion and disease prevention strategies.
- Identify health risk factors and strategies for change.
- Use health information and patient education activities in the daily practice of medicine.
Goal 5
To develop students' sensitivity to the biopsychosocial, familial, socioeconomic, and community aspects of medical problems inherent to family medicine.
Students will:
- Express sensitivity to community, cultural, ethnic, and occupational factors in patient management.
- Recognize the importance of family dynamics and support factors in patient care.
- Integrate problem-solving techniques utilizing psychosocial data.
Goal 6
To help students gain an appreciation for the medical specialty of family medicine and its role within the heath care delivery system.
Students will:
- Investigate the breadth of family medicine, which integrates the biological, clinical, and behavioral sciences into the daily practice of medicine.
- Demonstrate comprehensive, coordinated, and continuous care for the individual and the family.
- Demonstrate understanding of the importance of continuity of care, both for acute and chronic conditions.
- Coordinate with medical consultants, other health care professionals, and community resources.
- Understand the issue of cost-effectiveness.
Goal 7
To provide an opportunity for students to observe the impact of a family medicine practice on the practicing physician's personal and family life.
Students will:
- Identify the demands and rewards of a family physician's life.
- Understand the role of the physician in the community.
Goal 8
To help students learn the value of lifelong learning in the practice of family medicine.
Students will:
- Construct important clinical questions from a medical practice.
- Utilize available resources to answer clinical questions.
- Learn the value of self-learning and patterns of promoting self-learning.
