Over the course of three years the resident spends increasing amounts of time caring for their own panel of patients of all ages performing health maintenance, sick visits, managing chronic conditions, performing minor surgical procedures and providing obstetrical care.
Patient care is family-oriented and continuous over the three years.
The health centers offer their own conferences on outpatient topics of interest and each have their own identity in regard to the type of patients served and services offered. During first year the resident spends one to two health center sessions weekly, second year is two to three sessions and third year residents spend three to five sessions each week. A large component of the resident's learning experience is through health center call in which residents provide first line interventions, with attending supervision, for the busy health center practice on nights, weekends and holidays. This entails phone triage, assessing and treating acute illnesses, managing care of inpatients and delivering babies. Residents also manage their own panel of homebound or nursing home patients and their own obstetric patients.