Course Description
A required four-week clinical clerkship in Family Medicine, within the Ambulatory Family Medicine & Internal Medicine Block, is offered at fifteen teaching sites. Each of these sites has unique advantages and different patient demographics.
The goal of this clerkship is for the student to learn family-centered primary health care that is humanistic, comprehensive, cost-effective, continuous, and sensitive to psychosocial, ethical, and financial issues. Because family physicians take care of families, the clerkship will include family dynamics, the family's influence on health, and the impact of illness on the family.
Our clerkship provides an opportunity for students to learn about the diagnosis and management of patients with common problems. Students will be expected to learn a comprehensive approach to the patient with these problems that entails consideration of etiology, incidence, pathophysiology, clinical presentation, course, prognosis, treatment, and appropriate aspects of patient education, disease prevention, and health promotion. Students should develop sensitivity to social, familial, ethical, legal, cultural, and economic issues encountered in an ambulatory setting.
The clerkship is a predominantly ambulatory-based experience. Students see patients within the ambulatory setting of the assigned site Monday through Thursday. All the students will return to UCLA every Friday for lectures, discussions and workshops. The Friday sessions are designed to be interactive and to promote enjoyment in learning. There may be one evening or night call per week. The evening or night call will vary by site and will allow students to experience other aspects of family medicine (e.g., delivering babies, admitting patients to the hospital, volunteering in a free clinic).
The final evaluation of the student is based on clinical performance at the assigned site, a final written exam, participation in the Friday sessions, and selected project completion.
Course Chair: Susan Stangl M.D.