Family Medicine

Medical students complete an 8-week rotation during their third year. Carefully supervised, this experience provides students with the opportunity to practice nonhospital-based outpatient medicine as well as inpatient medicine. The goal of the program is to ensure the student physician is exposed to more common disorders than encountered in an ambulatory care setting. Students are required, under the supervision of a faculty member of the department, to utilize and apply osteopathic concepts in taking a history and physical, perform appropriate procedures, develop a differential diagnosis, formulate a treatment regimen, and identify a health promotion program that includes techniques to bring about changes in the patient's lifestyle.

This four-week experience enables medical students to continue the process of developing skills in an ambulatory care setting. Fourth year medical students will be exposed to a patient population with more complex pathologies. The requirement of heightened diagnostic skills, as well as increased ability to deal with more serious and complex medical issues result in further development of the student's skills in history taking and physical diagnosis as well as the development of more complex differential diagnoses and treatment plans.