Family and Community Medicine - MD (FCMED)

The goal of this clerkship is to help students integrate basic science and clinical knowledge in the context of patient care with supervising family physicians and their care teams. Family Medicine is a full-spectrum specialty. The emphasis of the clerkship is on breadth of knowledge as much as depth of knowledge. The clerkship also presents an excellent opportunity to hone communication and exam skills. Continuity of care, preventive medicine, evidence-based decision making, and systems-based thinking are all key to successful Family Medicine practice. The FCM clerkship will be a six-week clinical immersion at one of the Penn State medical group outpatient offices or with one of our affiliate sites. We strive to provide students with continuity with outpatient preceptors, which may include advanced-practice providers, residents, and/or attendings depending on your site placement. This will allow students to establish working relationships with preceptors, obtain valuable feedback for continued professional growth, and maintain continuity with patients.

Core Acting Internship rotations at Penn State emphasize students' active role on the team to ensure readiness for residency. In their role as acting interns, students on Core AI rotations will develop increasing proficiency and independence in developing plans of care, entering orders, preparing and performing patient handoffs, appropriately evaluating and responding to changes in patients' clinical conditions, and applying evidence-based care to patient management. The AI student should function with direct and indirect supervision to gather focused patient information during the history and physical exam in a time effective manner and use critical thinking and advanced knowledge to guide judgement and medical decision making in a semi-autonomous fashion. Students will take primary responsibility and be accountable for patient care, management, follow up, and reassessment throughout all phases of clinical care to also include electronic documentation. The AI student will be expected to exemplify professional behavior, communication, and teamwork with patients and families, interprofessional care team members, and interdisciplinary consultants at the level of a resident intern. This includes a proactive approach to teamwork, warm handoff and patient care follow up. The AI student will also display appropriate team leadership and teaching activities when applicable. This may include involvement in residency didactic sessions and coordination of care activities utilizing and understanding comprehensive care. During this specific AI Course, students will be immersed within the specialty of Family and Community Medicine, across many different patient populations, and will use advanced medical knowledge and practice during direct patient care in a collaborative and interprofessional manner to also include immersion and understanding of patients with different barriers to health care and social determinants of health.

Provides the opportunity for students working together to advance their communication skills in clinical settings.

Faculty in Family and Community Medicine (FCM) have developed a hands-on in-depth immersion in hospital-based medicine embedded in the FCM Inpatient Medical Service at the Penn State Milton S. Hershey Medical Center and College of Medicine. This 2 week experience prepares students to work in teams to improve patient outcomes by addressing complex medical issues, while gaining a greater understanding of the continuity that Family Medicine clinicians provide to their patients. Students will be able to expand their medical knowledge through both hands-on care, didactic lectures and interactive discussions, and they will be able to apply and enhance their critical thinking skills. Most didactic lessons will be available online for further review and to allow asynchronous learning. Students will work with the FCM Inpatient Team and develop transitional care plans to treat acute and chronic medical problems. Coordination of care with the Discharge Planning Team will be emphasized to ensure that patients are adequately prepared for hospital discharge. Factors that affect patient health post-discharge such as Social Determinants of Health and Transitional Care Management will also be discussed, and students may have the opportunity to follow up with their patients in the outpatient clinic or post-discharge settings such as a skilled nursing facility. Students will learn more about the key competencies espoused by the Interprofessional Education Collaborative (IPEC), and how knowledge and application of these competencies can enhance the patient experience and improve overall outcomes of patient care. The real-world interaction of this process helps students become part of a team that focuses on individual patient-centric care and patient-specific needs and the individual barriers that may prevent such ideal care. At the completion of this course students should have a better clinical understanding of the health systems science principles as they apply in the inpatient setting, and they will have a better command of the knowledge that is necessary to shepherd these patients safely through the hospital admission.

This course is designed to prepare students who are planning on entering into a family medicine residency for the transition to intern year. It is designed to build specific skill sets to facilitate that transition with the goal of bringing many of the topics introduced throughout medical school into a clinical context relevant to family medicine. Topics covered throughout the course include: management of acute inpatient and obstetric scenarios, core intern skills such as daily inpatient and outpatient care pearls, responding to pages, and procedural training. There will also be panel discussions on future career paths from a family medicine residency. The design of the course includes multiple educational venues. There will be several sessions conducted in the simulation center with a focus on case-based acute medical and obstetric scenarios. Other sessions will be done in small-group didactic settings in which interactive participation is encouraged. Several panel discussions as noted above will also be included. Upon completion of the course, participants will be able to perform initial steps in the evaluation and management of common acute medical and obstetrical scenarios. Additionally, they will have improved confidence in a variety of key skills for daily inpatient and outpatient care of a broad-spectrum of patients. Pre- and post-surveys will be performed to assess participants' confidence in these areas. Direct observation of student performance will take place in simulated case scenarios and paging simulations. Grading will be Pass-Fail based on active participation, attendance, and evaluations of simulated paging and case scenarios.

The Fourth Year Family and Community Medicine Elective is an advanced clinical training experience for medical students interested in family medicine as a career choice in a setting that expands on previous FCM rotations, at a site that fits their long-term practice goals. Students are challenged to demonstrate core proficiencies in ambulatory care across the life cycle, and to advance patient outcomes in the setting of their choice. This experience requires students to be comfortable with self-directed and experiential learning.

Creative projects including nonthesis research, which are supervised on an individual basis and which fall oustide the scope of formal courses.

Family & Community Medicine Individual Studies for 3rd Year.

Advanced training in interpersonal communication skills, community health, rural health, ambulatory care analysis, clinical nutrition, geriatrics, and other topics.