Family Medicine Residency – Curriculum and Rotations
Our residency training program curriculum provides a well-rounded clinical foundation for future physicians specializing in Family Medicine and Community Health.
Welcome to the Temple-Northwest Community Family Medicine Residency Program, where we take pride in offering a comprehensive and diverse curriculum designed to prepare our residents for the dynamic landscape of primary care. Our residents experience a rich variety of clinical environments, ranging from bustling urban centers to serene suburban settings, and encounter diverse patient populations across the lifespan, from newborns to geriatrics. What sets our program apart is our commitment to serving unique populations, including underserved and under-resourced communities, veterans, and college students. With a focus on longitudinal training, our residents delve deep into four key areas: geriatrics, community medicine, addiction medicine, and sports medicine. This approach ensures that our residents not only gain proficiency in common clinical encounters but also develop a profound understanding of the importance of community-centered care. Join us as we shape the future of family medicine, one compassionate provider at a time.
Family Medicine Residency Conference
Inpatient Rounds:
The senior resident coordinates the team of residents and students assigned to the inpatient family medicine service. During rounds, residents provide clinical evaluation and diagnostic and therapeutic planning for their panel of patients. Consultative services are readily available at Chestnut Hill Hospital and our affiliated sites, and patient care decisions can be reviewed with the attending physician during rounds.
Attending Physician Teaching Rounds:
Inpatient medicine faculty are highly motivated educators who have come from diverse backgrounds of clinical education settings. Teaching rounds include bedside and formal didactic sessions.
Grand Rounds:
Speakers are selected from department faculty, Chestnut Hill Hospital medical staff and visiting lecturers. Grand rounds are teleconferenced to the Manayunk office site.
Morbidity and Mortality:
M&M conference is held monthly to review interesting or particularly difficult cases. This is a multidisciplinary conference focusing on appropriate approach, diagnosis and therapy in these cases. Family medicine upper-year residents present at M&M with faculty members to review the case and provide root-cause analysis.
Weekly Conferences:
Weekly didactic conferences are held in Manayunk on Friday mornings. Residents and faculty are provided protected time away from rotations to attend these didactic sessions. Friday conference is an incredible learning opportunity in which individuals within the Department of Family, Community & Preventive Medicine and guest speakers from other specialties and disciplines offer their expertise on various topics of relevance to family medicine. Residents also have the opportunity to sharpen their teaching skills through resident conferences.
Journal Club is held monthly under the direct supervision of a department attending and Dr. Ed Gracely, a statistician, and expert in experimental design and statistical analysis. Led by an upper year, emphasis is placed on the role of research and literature in shaping clinical practice.
Quarterly sports medicine reviews are also held. With the help of Temple's sports medicine faculty and fellows, a comprehensive overview of a specific joint or system is provided during each session. Pathophysiology, physical exam, and clinical application are all reviewed in an integrative and interactive approach.
Scholarly Activity
There are extensive opportunities for family medicine residents to participate in scholarly activities with both Temple and Drexel faculty. Our faculty are involved in a wide variety of projects including writing book chapters and journal articles as well as presenting posters or didactic sessions at local, regional or national conferences.
Residents interested in a detailed research project may utilize an elective block for research. By the conclusion of the residency training, all residents will have completed three projects; scholarly activity, quality improvement, and community advocacy.
Longitudinal Curricula in Geriatrics, Sports Medicine, Community Medicine, Addiction Medicine
As family medicine physicians, it is crucial for our physicians to learn to care for our aging population, demonstrate confidence and competence in addressing musculoskeletal and mental health concerns from our patients and understand the communities they service through community advocacy efforts. All our residents learn these skills over their 3 years with us in a longitudinal fashion.
Geriatrics
We have a robust geriatrics curriculum. Upper-year residents spend time rounding in a community long-term care and subacute rehabilitation center and participate in the delivery of medical care to Philadelphia's elderly homebound population. Our residents have historically had the highest board performance in geriatric care and many are accepted into competitive geriatric fellowships.
Palliative Care
Our residents gain unique exposure to palliative medicine. In addition to an ongoing experience with palliative care in both our outpatient and inpatient settings, each of our residents spends one month on a palliative care rotation. The educational content includes end-of-life care, pain management, and oncology.
Sports Medicine
Our residents gain a robust educational experience in sports medicine. Linked to our Sports Medicine Fellowship, residents have comprehensive instruction in musculoskeletal medicine by our primary care sports medicine faculty and fellows. Our curriculum longitudinal curriculum includes rotations through our outpatient office, Chestnut Hill College training room, pre-participation sports physical exams, and game/event coverage. Residents also learn POCUS ultrasound through dedicated didactic teaching and clinical experience.
Community Medicine
From the time you start your residency training in your first year until you graduate, you will participate in community health as a part of our longitudinal curriculum. Under the department's Division of Community Health, community advocacy is a strength and a passion of our program. The community medicine curriculum includes various service-learning activities, community outreach events (i.e., health fairs, health screening, patient education programs, etc.), lead nutrition and fitness program Move It with Mommy & Me to address childhood obesity, and are preceptors at our medical student-run clinics at Eliza Shirley Women & Children's Shelter, Salvation Army Drug & Alcohol Rehabilitation Center, Streetside Prevention Point Needle Exchange Program, and more. Our residents also participate in a longitudinal curriculum and didactic lectures on various topics surrounding the care of our most vulnerable populations here in Philadelphia including trauma-informed care, immigrant health, and refugee care. Lastly, throughout the three years, residents are required to research, plan, implement, and evaluate their own community project or intervention and present it at a local, regional, or national conference.
Our residents have already developed amazing programs that remain functional and sustainable today. This includes our very own clinic food pantry. We have partnered with SharingExcess who provides weekly fresh produce deliveries! We look forward to your contributions when you come!
Substance Use Disorders/Chronic Pain
Our residents are privileged to participate in our newly designed longitudinal curriculum in addiction medicine which includes the management of substance use disorder (SUD) and chronic pain. Residents actively manage opioid use disorder at both outpatient and inpatient medication-assisted treatment (MAT) centers, participate in integrative chronic pain management group visits focusing on an alternative to medication modalities to treat pain, and shadow an acupuncturist who specializes in pain and SUD. They also participate in an interdisciplinary journal club dedicated to chronic pain. Didactics explore managing implicit bias, trauma-informed care, and evidence-based techniques for managing pain without medication. All resident's complete buprenorphine training and learn to actively manage the initiation and maintenance of patients on medication-assisted treatments for opiate use disorder in their continuity clinics.
Other Initiatives:
- Procedure Clinic
- Women’s Health
- Panel and Practice Management
- Lifestyle Medicine Curriculum and Certification Program
RESIDENT WELLNESS AND SUPPORT
We have a variety of programs that keep physician well-being in the forefront as our residents learn to care for patients. These include:
- Balint support group
- Intern Support
- Resident retreats (twice a year)
- Wellness Curriculum
- Dedicated Mentorship and Coaching
Balint Support Group: Balint sessions are also held monthly, facilitated by Dr. Flo Gelo, the department's behavioral health specialist. Balint affords residents an opportunity to discuss their patients and experiences within the program, in an effort to improve patient care and decrease fatigue and burnout.
Intern Return Program is a regularly scheduled PGY-1 group that offers another opportunity for residents to discuss both academic and life experiences, questions, and PGY-1-related didactics to further support the intern's transition, growth, and development in the first (and typically most challenging) year of residency.
Wellness Curriculum:
Our wellness curriculum includes various initiatives implemented through multimodal activities to help cultivate social, emotional and physical wellness needed for a fruitful learning environment. These initiatives include resident led activities as well as dedicated time for review and implementation of evidence-based strategies that promote physician wellbeing beyond residency training.
Mentorship and Coaching:
Each incoming resident is paired with a faculty member adviser for general support, coaching, and guidance throughout the three years of residency. Adviser-advisee meetings are held at least quarterly. Advisers review trainees' performance on in- training exams, rotation evaluations, and progress with scholarly activity. This is usually an informal time to also review professional, career and life goals and aspirations, as well as any concerns or issues that may have arisen. PGY-1 residents meet monthly as a group for intern support during Intern Return to assist in the transition into residency. PGY-2 and PGY-3 residents also select a faculty member to meet with for continued group support throughout their senior years of residency.
FAMILY MEDICINE RESIDENCY CALL SCHEDULE
Our Family Medicine Residency program takes duty hours regulations and resident fatigue very seriously. We have the call system outlined below in place to maximize the benefit and education residents have when dealing with patient issues on- call/overnight and balance it with the benefit and education of the rotations. Systems are in place to handle residents who are too fatigued to work after overnight call responsibilities.
PGY-1
On various weekends throughout the year, interns have 12-hour call shifts on Saturday and Sunday during the day and Friday and Saturday during the night. Typically, the same intern will be on Saturday and Sunday during the day while another intern will be on Friday and Saturday overnight. These shifts still allow for appropriate continuity and transitions of care.
PGY-2 and 3
Upper-year residents share call responsibilities. During the week, a night float resident is in the hospital overnight Sunday through Thursday, fielding admissions and handling any patient care issues that may arise from the admitted patients on the family medicine service. This resident also manages phone calls from family medicine outpatient offices and our affiliated nursing home. Over the weekends, rotating upper- year residents cover call responsibilities in shifts. A sign-out/transition of care system is in place to ensure excellent communication between the on-call resident and the rounding team.