The continuity clinic is either in a private practice, community clinic or the UCSD Ambulatory Care Center. Patients are followed in a group practice setting with the same set of attending physicians and residents. Anticipatory guidance for families and observation of normal growth and development are emphasized. During the second and third years of training, residents attend a continuity clinic in a subspecialty area every other week, in addition to their regular primary care continuity clinic. Residents evaluate and follow patients with medical conditions that they are unlikely to see in their primary care continuity clinic, such as children with precocious puberty in the endocrine clinic, or patients with nephrotic syndrome in the nephrology clinic.
Residents learn how subspecialists follow children with chronic diseases.
Other residents use this time to explore areas of pediatrics that have not traditionally been part of residency training, for example, a homeless adolescent clinic, school health, sports medicine, Indian health, child abuse, pediatric tuberculosis clinic, HIV clinic and subspecialty pediatrics in Mexico. New experiences are developed each year to meet the changing interests of the residents and the faculty. This year, the residency program became one of the six programs in the US to participate in the Dyson Foundation Initiative for development of community pediatric curriculum. Second and third year residents will participate in a longitudinal community continuity clinic, which they select at the beginning of their second year. The UCSD pediatric resident participates in a variety of programs for continued intellectual growth.