Emphasized conditions

Our intention in the family medicine clerkship is to provide a good sampling of types of patients for you to see, representative of the work of a typical family doctor. But there is no such thing as a ``typical family doctor.'' All of our practices adapt to the needs, resources, and lmitations of our communities.

As every clerkship in an accredited medical school must, we have devised a list of clinical conditions that every student should see at least once. Our list, shown in Table 1, that I will refer to as ``emphasized conditions:''

Table 1: Logging of emphasized conditions. O = observed; A = assisted; P = performed S = performed under direct faculty supervision

Condition	Experience type	Role	Number
upper respiratory syndromes and cough	real or simulated/online	OAPS	1
headache	real or simulated/online	OAPS	1
rashes and skin lesions	real or simulated/online	OAPS	1
back pain	real or simulated/online	OAPS	1
joint pain	real or simulated/online	OAPS	1
chest pain	real or simulated/online	OAPS	1
abdominal pain	real or simulated/online	OAPS	1
depression and/or anxiety	real or simulated/online	OAPS	1
hypertension	real or simulated/online	OAPS	1
type 2 diabetes	real or simulated/online	OAPS	1
hyperlipidemia	real or simulated/online	OAPS	1
routine health maintenance for all ages	real or simulated/online	OAPS	1

Despite the natural diversity in preceptor's practices, I believe every student should be able to see every one of these conditions or problems at least once during the year.

I measure how well the clerkship is delivering these experiences to you by two mechanisms:

I will provide feedback to you periodically, concerning the types of patients you have been seeing and writing up.