Education

The Family Medicine Residency Program is three years in length. The curriculum for each year is below:

• First Year
• Second Year
• Third Year

Forbes Family Medicine Center

Each year residents spend increasing time each week in the Family Medicine Center at Forbes.

Forbes Family Medicine Center functions as a practicing physician's office. Here, you will develop your own panel of patients and have the experience of working within a group practice that strongly promotes continuity of care. You will be part of a team that includes registered nurses, medical secretaries, clinical nurse specialists, and a patient educator/nurse practitioner, all of whom support your learning in the Forbes Family Medicine Center. A patient-centered medical home is further supported with Allscripts electronic medical record (EMR).

Facilities of the Center

At the core of the Forbes Family Medicine Center is a large precepting and resident work area, adjoining the clinical area with 14 patient exam rooms and a family consultation room. Some are equipped with special instruments and facilities for ENT exams and office procedures, such as colposcopy, cryosurgery, electrosurgery and minor surgery.

The Center is also equipped for audiometry, tympanometry, spirometry, EKG, vision testing and similar evaluations. There is an on-site office lab for such routine tests as urinalysis, urine cultures, hemoglobin, serum glucose, pregnancy tests and microscopic exams.

There is also a well-lit, state-of-the-art conference room just upstairs from the Forbes Family Medicine Center.

Additional Resources

As a part of our Family Medicine Residency Program's interest in developing your interpersonal and communication skills, certain patient treatment and consultation rooms at the Center are equipped with video monitoring and recording equipment.

There is a full-time psychologist on the faculty who is available to precept and consult.

Staff and family conference rooms, residents' lounge, library, precepting areas, medical records office, waiting room, patient education area, and faculty offices complete the resources offered by Forbes Family Medicine Center.

First Year

In the first year of the Family Medicine Residency Program, rotations are planned to reinforce and expand the knowledge and skills acquired in medical school and to introduce the care of families at the Forbes Family Medicine Center.

The focus of this first year is inpatient experience in four basic areas - adult medicine, pediatrics, obstetrics, and surgery - plus emergency medicine.

The first year curriculum is a longitudinal experience with two half-days per week in the Family Medicine Center. The rotations are as follows: 

*On the Pediatrics rotation, residents run an active inpatient service for patients with a broad range of community pediatric problems. They also see all newborns in the regular and special-care nursery, attend high-risk deliveries, evaluate pediatric patients in the emergency department and see patients in the pediatric faculty's offices. Full-time pediatric faculty teach residents on this service.
 

Second Year

In the second year, the program emphasizes expanding your knowledge in pediatrics, internal medicine, and obstetrics while increasing your responsibility as a senior resident. During this year, you will begin to serve as a supervising physician and teacher for first-year residents and medical students, particularly on these three rotations. You will be provided with specific training in teaching to prepare you for this role.

Rotations are also scheduled in the intensive care unit and family practice inpatient care.

Additionally, there is one month of elective time and one month spent in the practice of a community family physician.

The second year curriculum is a longitudinal experience that includes three half-days per week in the Family Medicine Center. The rotations are as follows: 

Electives:

• Allergy
• Anesthesia
• Community-Oriented Primary Care Project
• Counseling
• Endocrinology
• Forbes Hospice
• Gastroenterology
• Hematology/Oncology
• Infectious Disease
• Neonatology
• Nephrology
• Occupational Medicine
• Office Surgery
• Pathology
• Patient Education
• Physical Medicine
• Radiology
• Rheumatology
• Sports Medicine
• Women's Health

You may also design, in conjunction with your advisor, elective rotations to meet your individual needs and interests, either required rotations or medical electives.

*On the Family Medicine Inpatient Service, second- and third-year residents function as lead physician on the service to which resident and faculty patients are admitted. They supervise first-year residents. This service will expose residents to the full spectrum of family practice patients -  adults with medical/surgical conditions, children, newborns, postpartum patients and psychiatric consult patients. The resident rounds daily with a family medicine faculty member.

**Second-year residents may choose a focus for the obstetrics/gynecology rotation, as follows:

• You may do obstetrics with a nurse midwife at a birthing center or with an obstetrician; or
• You may focus on office gynecology.

***Geriatrics is taught as a 1-month block rotation along with monthly multidisciplinary teaching rounds at our nursing home. Residents follow a panel of nursing home patients throughout this year. Experience at our well-established hospice is also part of the rotation.

Third Year

The program's third year gives you advanced clinical practice and more half-days per week in the Forbes Family Medicine Center.

In addition to the required medical and surgical subspecialty rotations, you will choose or design electives to expand your knowledge in previously introduced areas or integrate new ones of special interest.

The third-year curriculum includes five half-days per week in the Family Medicine Center and the following rotations: