New York-Presbyterian Hospital: Columbia University Medical Center offers the prospective family physician the highest quality training in a nurturing, educational setting. The Family Medicine Residency Program's inpatient rotations take place primarily at The Allen Pavilion-- a 200-bed hospital situated three miles north of the main campus. Its state-of-the-art ICU/CCU, labor and delivery suites, four operating rooms, and medical and surgical patient care areas present a full range of teaching opportunities, and the New York-Presbyterian Hospital: Columbia University Medical Center faculty, all top-notch clinicians and educators, know how to make the most of them.

Located at the Allen Pavilion, the Family Medicine Inpatient Service provides the core experience for teaching residents the skills and knowledge crucial for hospital care. The Inpatient Service team consists of one senior resident (a PGY2 or PGY3), two interns, and a senior night float resident. The service accepts patients admitted from resident and faculty practices so that residents learn the role a primary care provider within the hospital. Teaching is provided by two faculty family physicians, a behavioral scientist, a PhD ethics/narrative medicine specialist, and a full array of subspecialty consultants.

The Family Medicine Residency Program's inpatient rotations take place
primarily at The Allen Pavilion.

Family Medicine residents spend two months in general surgery, working with surgical attendings in their offices and in the O.R. During their maternity rotation, residents experience the busy labor floor, working one-on-one with members of the Family Medicine Faculty as well as obstetricians. Intensive care rotations are supervised by internists from Columbia University's Department of Medicine. Also at the Allen is the Program's inpatient adult psychiatry training, where residents learn how to perform psychiatric evaluations and provide treatment for both mentally ill chemical abusers and general adult psychiatry patients or referrals.

The remainder of the inpatient training takes place at New York-Presbyterian Hospital: Columbia University Medical Center's main campus, a complex of health-care facilities, including the Milstein Hospital Building, the College of Physicians & Surgeons, the School of Public Health, and others. Most importantly, Family Medicine residents earn their pediatrics experience at the division of the medical center known as Morgan Stanley Children's Hospital of New York, an entire hospital devoted exclusively to the care of children.

A full range of medical subspecialty consultants and both the surgical and surgical subspecialty services support the Family Medicine Service.

Residency training occurs off campus as well. The geriatric rotation takes place at Schervier Nursing Care Center, where residents receive geriatric care training in both the ambulatory and skilled nursing facility settings. Residents do home visits throughout their 3 years of training, caring and learning from their patients, as well as reflecting (through narrative writing exercises) on the experiences they witness within the fabric of their pateints' daily lives.

Specialty Rotations

The Family Medicine Residency Program offers a broad scope of ambulatory care experiences in various subspecialty disciplines, focusing on aspects particularly relevant to the office practice of a family physician. In addition to the two-month general surgery experience, ambulatory surgery subspecialty topics that residents learn include office urology, adult and pediatric ambulatory orthopedics, rheumatology and sports medicine, eye, ear, nose, dental and throat problems. The residents spend one month each in the busy pediatric and adult emergency departments. They are also exposed to 4 weeks each of outpatient evaluation and management of psychiatric, gynecologic, dermatologic, and ambulatory pediatric cases.

Block Rotations -- First Year Family Medicine Inpatient Service 16 weeks Obstetrics I 8 weeks ICU 4 weeks Family Health Center 4 weeks Pediatrics Inpatient 8 weeks General Surgery I 4 weeks Vacation 4 weeks Community Oriented Primary Care 4 weeks

Longitudinal experiences:
Behavioral Sciences, Disease Prevention – Health Promotion, Office Practice (one session per week), Diagnostic Imaging, Cardiology, Practice Management, Lecture Curriculum, COPC, Obstetrics & Women's Health, Adult and Pediatric Inpatient Continuity, Home Visits, Nursing Home Continuity, Research Curriculum

Block Rotations – Second Year Gynecology 4 weeks Behavioral Science 4 weeks Elective 4 weeks Community Oriented Primary Care 4 weeks ICU 4 weeks Neonatology / Newborn Nursery 4 weeks Obstetrics II 2 weeks Geriatrics 4 weeks Pediatric Emergency Medicine 4 weeks General Surgery II 4 weeks Family Medicine Inpatient Service 10 weeks Vacation 4 weeks

Longitudinal experiences:
Behavioral Sciences, Disease Prevention – Health Promotion, Office Practice (three sessions per week), Diagnostic Imaging, Cardiology, Practice Management, Lecture Curriculum, COPC, Obstetrics & Women’s Health, Adult and Pediatric Inpatient Continuity, Home Visits, Nursing Home Continuity, Research Curriculum

Block Rotations – Third Year Electives 8 weeks Musculoskeletal Medicine 8 weeks COPC / Research 4 weeks Dermatology 4 weeks Otolaryngology/Dental/Ophthalmology 2 weeks Practice Management 4 weeks Family Medicine Inpatient Service 10 weeks Ambulatory Pediatrics 4 weeks Adult Emergency Medicine 4 weeks Vacation 4 weeks

Longitudinal experiences:
Behavioral Sciences, Disease Prevention – Health Promotion, Office Practice (four sessions per week), Diagnostic Imaging, Cardiology, Practice Management, Lecture Curriculum, COPC, Obstetrics & Women's Health, Adult and Pediatric Inpatient Continuity, Home Visits, Nursing Home Continuity, Research Curriculum

The didactic curriculum at the Family Medicine Residency Program is an integral and important cornerstone of our residents' education. We are fortunate enough to have a diverse Family Medicine faculty involved in teaching. At the same time we are able to offer lectures and talks from an outstanding group of world-class subspecialists at Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons. We have access to some of the best medical educators from other New York and national institutions who lecture for us. And our own second and third year residents take part in presenting a wide variety of Family Medicine didactics. The residency takes an active role in getting resident feedback to constantly improve and diversify the didactic curriculum.

We have several monthly conference series each of which focus on a different interest within Family Medicine. In the paragraphs below, different faculty members provide you with a brief description of each series. We also have excellent coverage of internal medicine topics, such as management of CHF, acid-base skills, hyperlipidemia standards, and management of hypertension.

Women's Health Corner
"We are very excited about our approach to women's health. Our residents are taught by family Physicians, OB-GYNs, and certified nurse midwives in the community. A collaborative and well-rounded approach is not only reflected in the OB rotation (which boasts one-on-one direct family medicine attending teaching) but also in this monthly Women's Health Series. This series has included topics such as "Colposcopy", "Gestational Diabetes", "Menopause", and "Heart Disease in Women". Our curriculum is created to be sensitive to all women regardless of their racial, ethnic, or sexual orientation background."

Radiology Rounds
"Radiology Rounds has been a great success because of the collaborative efforts between our department and the Department of Radiology. The series involves reviewing radiology cases, techniques, reading skills from various formats including X rays, sonography, CT and MRIs, and nuclear imaging among others. What makes it unique is that the didactics and cases are directed toward primary care – making the conference practical and very useful."

Behavioral Sciences / Balint Groups
"Family Medicine is the only specialty that includes behavioral science as part of its core curriculum. Here at Columbia that curriculum focuses on the multi-determined nature of illness, health and the physician /patient/ family relationship. We also seek to understand the impact of class, gender, ethnic and culture identifications as well as personal and familial history. This assures that our program provides effective and compassionate medical care. A variety of modalities are used in our behavior science training to achieve these goals:

HIV Rounds
"The first providers most patients turn to for care after being diagnosed with HIV is their primary care physician. It is important and vital that Family Medicine continue to pave the way to compassionate care for people living with HIV-AIDS and their families and to learn not just the medicine involved, but the role of advocate and coordinator of care. Taking care of HIV-AIDS patients is paramount if you intend to practice family medicine in urban inner cities and elsewhere. HIV Rounds meets every other month to review topics such as antiretrovirals, primary care for HIV patients, and mental health in HIV populations. Residents also present their patients from time to time as case review. These sessions are moderated by the Family Medicine faculty and work in conjunction with the Department of Infectious Diseases and the Community Education Initiative Program of St. Vincent's Medical Center."

Journal – Research – Ethics Club
"The Journal Club is one of the interactive venues for teaching our residents the skills of critical appraisal of medical literature."

Inpatient Series
"There's no better way to learn medicine than by reviewing cases. In this highly interactive session, we use the Socratic method to discuss an interesting inpatient case. From the presentation and differential diagnosis to the work-up and treatment, we pay special attention to the process of clinical reasoning that is used along the way."

R2 And R3 Conference Series
"There is no better way to learn and master a topic in medicine than by having to turn around and teach it to others. Every second and third year resident presents two lectures a year on a topic of their choice. They work in conjunction with a faculty mentor who can be helpful in directing the resident towards resources, in choosing the best presentation style for the audience, in time management, and in making the topic practical for family practitioners. Residents will come out not just learning a lot about chest pain management, obesity strategies, or geriatric care but in how to present an enthusiastic, useful, and engaging talk."

Family Medicine Grand Rounds Night
"One evening monthly, residents and faculty come together for an informal time together. We always have a program, which will vary from an interesting case presentation, a cultural awareness topic including food or music, residents discussing their community oriented primary care project, pressing issues identified from the residents' meeting earlier that day, or a clinical update of interest. We always have food and camaraderie, which is of course one of the most important aspects of any resident meeting."

Pediatric Seminars
"Although pediatric lectures are a part of the overall didactic curriculum, we have a dedicated regular seminar series that puts the spotlight on our younger patients. We cover topics from New Management Update in Strep Pharyngitis to Sensitive Sexual Histories For Adolescents. The resources for these lectures come from our own Family Medicine faculty and the Department of Pediatrics with whom we have a very collegial relationship both on the residents' various inpatient and outpatient pediatric rotations and here in the didactics."

Practice Management Series
"Family physicians today are faced with a very complex spectrum of medical practice opportunities that are constantly evolving. To be able to maintain a quality medical practice, one must be (1) cognizant of the components of health care delivery, (2) compliant with external regulatory agencies and accreditation organizations, and (3) proficient in the body of knowledge, attitudes and skills needed to provide competent and compassionate family medicine. Practice management attempts to teach these elements and help the resident transition smoothly from training to the practice of medicine."

Residents' Meeting
"At this monthly meeting, the residents address any and all concerns that we may have. We also use this time to discuss goals and resident projects, to develop proposals for improving the residency, and to touch base and provide mutual support."

Family Medicine Excellence Series
"The field of family medicine is dynamic. Medical societies often differ in their latest management recommendations; these medical controversies can confuse patients and doctors alike. This conference series explores the latest updates in medical management, treatments, and health promotion recommendations in family medicine."

ABFP Review Series
"This conference series covers topics tested on the American Board of Family Practice. It also covers test-taking techniques designed to enhance residents’ success on the USMLE 3 and ABFP examinations."