University of Virginia Health System

• Introduction

• Educational Program

  • First Year Schedule                            
    

  • Second Year Schedule

  • Third Year Schedule

• Rotation Goals and Objectives

• Essentials of Family Medicine I, II & III

• CarePath Curriculum: The provided links provide you with easy access to learning resources you will find useful in development and completion of your team's CAREPATH/TQI project.

• Schedule of Conferences and Activities

• Family Medicine Residency Handbook (PDF document)

The Family Medicine Residency program at the University of Virginia is designed to prepare the medical school graduate for the delivery of comprehensive health care to patients of all ages. Our residency has a strong base in medicine and pediatrics but also provides excellent training in obstetrics, gynecology, human behavior, sports medicine, and women's health.

Diverse elective opportunities are available and each resident is encouraged to develop areas of special interest, including training in procedures like colposcopies, colonoscopies, and treadmill testing.

The underlying goal of the curriculum is to ensure that the graduate will be an outstanding family physician. The Curriculum Committee consisting of faculty and residents reassesses the curricula offerings on an ongoing basis

EDUCATIONAL PROGRAM

The first year

emphasizes inpatient care in Family Medicine, Internal Medicine, and Pediatrics, but also has rotations in obstetrics, ambulatory pediatrics, outpatient medicine, emergency medicine, and gynecology.

This year begins in early JUNE with a 3 week orientation period designed to acclimate the incoming resident to our department and to the University of Virginia Health System.

One-half day per week during the first year is spent at the Family Practice Center in the delivery of comprehensive outpatient care. First year residents take call on various hospital services and is never more frequent than every fourth night. There is no call during Family Medicine, Outpatient Pediatrics, or Gynecology rotations. Call during the first year averages every fifth night.

February marks the Essentials of Family Medicine I month, a didactic month where residents spend a month together participating in a combination of seminars, workshops, and self study exercises directed specifically at their level of training (see below for more information about this.)

A typical schedule for Year 1 follows:

The second year

emphasizes the development of a wide variety of outpatient skills while providing additional inpatient experience. One month rotations in human behavior, geriatrics, orthopedics, and pediatrics provide additional training in the general care of the family.

PGY2 Family Medicine residents function as supervising ward residents on internal medicine in the Family Medicine Inpatient, and Pediatric Emergency Department.

The month of September is devoted to a block rotation in Family Medicine for all second year residents. During this month, workshops on procedural skills are presented as well as sessions on practice management and information mastery. A variety of community based experiences are also offered. All PGY2 residents are scheduled for one month of night float. Additionally, one month is designated as an elective month.

A typical schedule for Year 2 follows:

The third year

allows the resident to develop increasing autonomy as a family practitioner. There is the opportunity to integrate skills and knowledge with practice philosophy, as well as time to pursue areas of special interest.

Each third year resident serves as the teaching resident on the family medicine inpatient service for six weeks and assumes primary responsibility for the obstetric and newborn patients on the service.

An additional six weeks are spent at Stoney Creek Family practice, our departmental satellite. Stoney Creek is a busy rural outpatient practice in Nellysford, Virginia, located 30 miles southwest of Charlottesville.

Two to four weeks of the third year are devoted to experiences in neurology, ophthalmology, sports medicine, outpatient obstetrics, surgery, and urology. The remaining months are elective which may be taken in any subspecialty in the Medical Center or may be arranged away from Charlottesville.  An optional two week rotation is available during the third year which can be scheduled for training in obstetrics at Portsmouth Naval Hospital in Portsmouth, Virginia.

The third year provides the opportunity for increased responsibility, and real world practice experiences.

A typical schedule for Year 3 follows: 

Currently, our regular conference schedule consists of the following:

What are the Essentials of Family Medicine I, II & III

Our three-month "Essentials of Family Medicine" series is an ambitious and innovative curriculum for teaching important core knowledge and skills for a wide variety of key areas important to developing physicians. Each year, each residency class spends a month together participating in a combination of seminars, workshops, and self study exercises directed specifically at their level of training, to enhance clinical skills as well as to introduce and build on topics such as:

• Procedures training
• Well child, adolescent, and adult care
• Concepts of prevention and screening
• Chronic disease care
• Community medicine
• Practice management and leadership
• Quality improvement
• Information mastery
• Teaching
• Self-reflection and self-care
• Optimizing the physician/patient relationship