Family Medicine Residency - Curriculum

Rotations & didactics at WellSpan Good Samaritan Hospital

Academics and rotation structure

Our program employs longitudinal curricula that bring innovation to family medicine training with a Continuity Clinic Centered (C3) model of scheduling. Largely, it consists of six months of core rotations and six months of longitudinal blocks.

This format ensures that a seamless incorporation of specialty variety is spread out over the three years of residency.

C3 model: Patient-centered continuity clinic

Residents work in 3-2-1 resident teams in their continuity clinics called Family Medicine Practice Sites, which include one PGY-3, PYG-2 and PGY-1 resident as well as assigned attending physician and clinical and clerical staff.
During core rotations, each resident will have at least one half-day in clinic.
Each resident is clearly identified as the primary health care provider (PCP) for their continuity patient panel.
- PGY-1: 150-250 patients, one clinic day per week
- PGY-2: 250-500 patients, two clinic days per week
- PGY-3: 500-750 patients, two to three clinic days per week
Each 3-2-1 team works to provide and maintain quality metrics for their patient panel utilizing the Patient Centered Medical Home (PCMH) model to maintain the site accreditation by the National Committee for Quality Assurance (NCQA).

Core rotations

Inpatient medicine and ICU (24 weeks)
Night float (24 weeks)
Emergency medicine (8 weeks)
Obstetrics and maternity care (8 weeks)
Inpatient pediatrics (8 weeks)

Longitudinal curricula

Longitudinal curricula are offered in blocks throughout training to allow incremental spiral learning. The blocks include:
internal medicine subspecialties (rheumatology, endocrinology, infectious disease, nephrology, gastroenterology, hematology and oncology, cardiology)
critical care (open ICU)
addiction and chronic pain management
ambulatory pediatrics
orthopedics and primary care sports medicine
gynecology and women’s health
health systems management, leadership and advocacy
general surgery
surgical subspecialties (urology, vascular surgery)
community medicine
school health (school physicals and sporting events)
patient safety and quality of care
research and scholarship

Didactics

Residents share a seat on the didactic committee and help to shape the lecture content and structure. Our curriculum is modeled after the American Board of Family Medicine and American Osteopathic Association exam content rubrics, so our lecture topic frequency reflects topic representation on board exams.

Content is redundant over an 18-month cycle to ensure coverage of material. Below is the model we use to construct lecture schedules:

Elective rotations (12 weeks total):

PGY-2: four weeks with additional four weeks from longitudinal curricula
PGY-3: eight weeks with additional eight weeks from longitudinal curricula
Elective opportunities include the option to create custom curriculum to fit the educational needs of an individual resident. Some of the unique electives include:
- parenting (up to 4 weeks): offers experiential learning from being new parents while providing much needed time for bonding
- study (up to 4 weeks): offers focused time to study and fill gaps for board preparation
- research (up to 4 weeks): offers focused time to develop skills and complete any scholarly projects
- obesity medicine: training with obesity medicine specialists
- neurology, ENT, ophthalmology and dermatology: traditional training with increased focus in these areas
- health systems management, leadership and advocacy: offers innovative and unique learning opportunities
- global health elective: provides opportunities to work with the WellSpan Health Center of Global Health and complete a global health area of concentration
- away elective: in area of resident’s interest

Call schedule:

There is no call taken from home.
Weekend patient calls are received by the inpatient team.
Night patient calls are received by night float team.
Residents will cover approximately three 12-hour long Sunday obstetrics shifts per year to provide a day off for the resident on service.

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Family Medicine Residency - Curriculum

Rotations & didactics at WellSpan Good Samaritan Hospital