Clinical resources to teach components of a new Family Medicine Clerkship Curriculum.

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES This retrospective study was designed to determine the capacity of a 6-week distributed Family Medicine Clerkship to provide student documented patient encounters that could facilitate instructions on the acute illness and chronic disease components of the new Family Medicine Clerkship Curriculum (FMCC). The FMCC was developed to standardize core clinical education experiences in Family Medicine Clerkships in US medical schools. METHODS Three years (FY06--FY08) of patient encounters documented by students and compiled in a Family Medicine Clerkship patient encounter database at the Medical College of Georgia were examined to determine the presence of patient experiences consistent with the acute illness and chronic disease presentations objectives of the new FMCC. The study cohort consisted of 537 students encountering 78,770 patients in 21 learning sites. RESULTS Fifty-five percent of the FMCC acute illness presentations objectives (n=20) were encountered at least once by >90% of the students while 81% of the chronic disease presentations objectives (n=16) were encountered at least once by >90% of the students. All students encountered patients with multiple chronic diseases, with an average of 32.29 and 13.6 student patient encounters containing two and three chronic diseases respectively. Patient volumes for the FMCC acute illness and chronic disease objectives ranged from means of 0.37 to 10.37 and 2.24 to 57.47 per student respectively. CONCLUSIONS The study suggests that a 6-week Family Medicine Clerkship could provide patient experiences to facilitate student instructions on most of the acute illness and chronic disease presentations objectives of the new FMCC.