Forbes Family Practice Brochure p4

Important Facts about this program

Family Practice is the only residency at West Penn - Forbes Regional Campus. There is no competition for patients. Each rotation provides you with the challenge of direct responsibility for patient care under the continual, appropriate supervision of attending physicians. Your second-year pediatrics, medicine and obstetrics rotations allow you to teach and work with first-year family practice residents. There are also opportunities in all three years to teach medical students.

The on-call experience is structured for learning. Two residents are on call each night, one covering OB and admissions to the Family Practice and Medicine service, and the other Pediatrics and acute calls in the house. Each resident works autonomously, without the usual hierarchy of teams, although the other resident is always available for consultation and assistance. Residents call the attendings directly and run through their findings and plan of action with them. There is always a pediatrician in the hospital who provides 24-hour continuity of pediatric education. While on call, residents also answer phone calls from the Family Health Center office patients.

Call schedule is arranged so that each resident has about a 50/50 split of the two types of call nights. Therefore, residents see all types of patients at all points during the year, instead of limiting the exposure to one area of medicine to the few months they are on that service. The call-to-call variety of coverage is similar to the experience in practice after residency.

Frequency - First-year residents will be on call approximately four times per month; second year, three times per month; and third year, two or three times per month. A night float system covers about half of all weekday calls to minimize fatigue and loss of time from rotations. Residents serve as night float for two weeks at the end of first year, one month during second year, and two weeks in the third year.

Exposure - Residents handle admissions to their own services, as well as respond to calls regarding acute problems, i.e. chest pain, shortness of breath, abdominal pain, etc., but not for routine problems or orders on all patients in the hospital.

Core rotations are done at West Penn - Forbes Regional Campus so call is never taken at another hospital. The medicine service only takes admissions from one group of physicians (one of whom rounds with the residents daily) and not from a variety of private doctors.

Relationships between attendings and residents are different from most resident/attending relationships. While attendings teach, they are also open to discussing different ideas regarding patient management. The atmosphere of mutual respect and cooperation adds greatly to the learning experience.

The hospital administration is very supportive of the residency. While benefits such as free, well-lit, gated parking and free meals are not enough to choose a residency, they do imply a certain appreciation. Similarly, the availability of 24-hour support services such phlebotomy says a great deal about how the hospital views the residents' role here - as doctors.

Forbes Family Practice Residency Program fulfills all requirements of the American Board of Family Practice and has been fully approved by the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education since 1978.