Primary Care Training

Residency Training in Primary Care

In July 2003 the Department of Internal Medicine and Preventive Medicine received this primary care training grant from the Department of Health Resources and Services Administration. This three-year initiative enables Griffin to expand and further develop our previous four-year Internal Medicine/Preventive Medicine program with an emphasis on preparing residents to serve underserved communities. The goals of this project are to foremost establish "Serving the Underserved" as the predominant focus of Griffin Hospital's residency training 1) in the currently operational unique four-year primary internal medicine/ preventive medicine program leading to dual Board-certification and MPH degree and 2) in a proposed new three-year primary care internal medicine (PCIM) residency program. Objectives for this project include: the formation of a comprehensive web-based interactive geriatric curriculum, development of a monthly lecture series and rotation in women's health, genetics, HIV/AIDS, and public health, and dissemination of both models to other community hospitals.

The goals and objectives of this project relate to one of the main goals set by Healthy People 2010, which is, increasing "quality and years of healthy life". Action plans and educational strategies employed in this project will help health professionals address this goal and preserve the "physical activity" of the elderly patients. Furthermore, PACT is specifically designed to" incorporate specific competencies in the essential health services into personnel systems", in accordance with Objective 23-8 of healthy people 2010. The interdisciplinary curriculum of the program is designed to teach preventive podogeriatric medicine to both primary care and podiatric doctors, increasing their level of competence in this specific area. This information will be disseminated by two methods. One is by publication of articles on development, implementation, and results of this training in peer review journals. The second is in the form of educational products that are easily accessible for other podiatric and primary care residencies in the country. Two separated interactive teaching tools; a web-based curriculum and a CD-ROM will be developed for distant learning.