The Primary Care Training Program features well-organized longitudinal clinics and special ambulatory care curricula during all three years of training. At both sites, house staff practice alongside general internal medicine faculty.
Nurses are also available to help with patient care.
Both clinics maintain computerized databases that include patients' problem lists, previous discharge diagnoses, laboratory and radiology reports, and medication lists and allergies. The ambulatory block is scheduled early in the first year to allow house staff to build a large panel of outpatients to follow for the duration of their residency training. Residents have no inpatient responsibilities during the ambulatory block, enabling them to give their undivided attention to learning ambulatory medicine. Trainees participate in weekly Ambulatory Morning Report during the ambulatory block as well as take courses on the patient-doctor relationship, medical ethics, and management of drug and alcohol abuse. The patient-doctor relationship course, which continues throughout the residency, emphasizes basic interviewing skills during the first year.