Family Medicine Education

Clinical Rotation in Family Medicine

Director: Fredricka Barr, MD
Coordinator: Celeste Castorena
(Mandatory 3rd year eight-week)

The Family Medicine Clinical clerkship affiliated with the Texas College of Osteopathic Medicine serve to provide supervised, high quality opportunities for third and fourth year medical students to apply and transform the declarative medical knowledge and basic clinical skills that they have acquired into procedural clinical competence, while also functioning as learning members of health care teams. The clinical clerkships promote and support TCOM students in developing clinical competence with emphasis on the core competencies beyond medical knowledge alone. Clerkships are encouraged to seek opportunities for students to provide Health and Wellness Counseling, develop improved interpersonal and communication skills, professionalism, as well as practice- based learning and improvement.

During this rotations, students will work alongside Family Medicine physicians associated with the University of North Texas Health Science Center Practice Plan, the John Peter Smith Community Medicine Department, and at remote sites in Conroe, Longview, and Corpus Christi. The objectives of the Clinical Clerkships are to enable TCOM students to achieve competence as graduate osteopathic medical students. As such, the objectives of the clerkship curriculum are represented by the AACOM Osteopathic Core Competencies for Medical Students.

For the purposes of the TCOM Clinical Clerkship Competencies, the AACOM 14 Competencies have been condensed into the following 8:

• Osteopathic Principles and Practices
• Medical Knowledge
• Patient Care
• Interpersonal and Communication Skills
• Professionalism
• Practice-Based Learning and Improvement
• Systems-Based Practice
• Health Promotion/Disease Prevention
  • Communicate effectively and demonstrate caring and respectful behaviors when interacting with patients and their families.
  • Gather essential and accurate patient information.
  • Make informed decisions about diagnostic and therapeutic interventions based on patient information and preferences, up-to-date scientific evidence, and clinical judgment.
  • Develop and carry out patient management plans.
  • Counsel and educate patients and their families.
  • Use information technology to support patient care decisions and patient education.
  • Perform competently all medical and invasive procedures considered essential for practice.
  • Provide health care services aimed at preventing health problems or maintaining health.
  • Work with health care professionals from all disciplines to provide patient- focused care.
  • Know and apply the appropriate basic and clinically supportive sciences.
  • Use information technology to manage information, access on-line medical information, and support their own education.
  • Create and sustain a therapeutic and ethically sound relationship with patients.
  • Use effective listening skills and elicit and provide information using effective nonverbal, explanatory, questioning, and writing skills.
  • Demonstrate respect, compassion, and integrity; a responsiveness to the needs of patients and society that supersedes self-interest; accountability to patients, society, and the profession; and a commitment to excellence and on-going professional development.
  • Demonstrate a commitment to ethical principles pertaining to provision or withholding of clinical care, confidentiality of patient information, informed consent, and business practices.
  • Demonstrate sensitivity and responsiveness to patients’ culture, age, gender, and disabilities.
  • Know how types of medical practice and delivery systems differ from one another, including methods of controlling health care costs and allocating resources.
  • Practice cost-effective health care and resource allocation that does not compromise quality of care.
  • Advocate for quality patient care and assist patients in dealing with system complexities.
  • The body is a unit: the person is a unit of body, mind and spirit.
  • The body is capable of self-regulation, self-healing and health maintenance.
  • Structure and function are reciprocally related.
  • Rational treatment is based upon an understanding of the basic principles of body unity, self-regulation and the interrelationship of structure and function.

General Competencies

The core clinical clerkship in family medicine provides students with the opportunity for advancement of the following competencies:

• Osteopathic Principles and Practices (OPP)
• Medical Knowledge (MK)
• Patient Care (PC)
• Interpersonal and Communication Skills (ICS)
• Professionalism (P)
• Practice-Based Learning and Improvement (PBLI)
• Systems-Based Practice (SBP)
• Health Promotion/Disease Prevention (HPDP)

Elective Rotations in Family Medicine

Third and fourth year students may choose to do a four week elective rotation in Family Medicine. The elective would afford the student more time in the Family Medicine office and/or hospital environment to enhance their knowledge of primary care and to enhance their chances of obtaining a Family Medicine Residency.