Clinical Rotations

Resident staffing a patient with Andrew Wolf MD, firm attending and Associate Director of the primary care track, at University Medical Associates (resident continuity clinic)

The core primary care training experience is based at University Medical Associates (UMA) and University Physicians – Charlottesville (UPC). UMA is a nationally recognized resident-faculty multidisciplinary practice serving not just the city of Charlottesville and surrounding counties, but all of central Virginia and much of northern and southwestern Virginia as well. The clinic provides model care to a remarkably diverse patient population. Sixty percent of patients are medically indigent and, if uninsured, are eligible for free care and heavily discounted medications through the hospital pharmacy. The Primary Care Track residents are all on the same UMA firms, under the mentorship of the Track Director, Dr. Kon, and Associate Track Director, Dr. Wolf. The UMA Clinic experience trains residents to manage the most biopsychosocially challenging patients as part of an interprofessional team that includes RN nurse care coordinators, social work, pharmacy, LPNs and patient care assistants.

All Primary Care Track residents have a second continuity experience during their +1 weeks at University Physicians-Charlottesville. UPC, with its six full-time UVA faculty internists, offers a more intimate “office-like” rather than “clinic-like” environment for training. Its patient population ranges from the medically indigent to UVA department chairs. Residents are teamed with a faculty dyad for their own “mini-firm”. By seeing patients at both UMA and UPC, Primary Care Track residents are afforded the opportunity to care for the full spectrum of patients encountered in primary care practice.

In addition to the clinical experiences offered to the Categorical residents, Primary Care Track residents participate in the unique core rotations described below.

Resident (right) staffing a patient with Kim Dowdell MD, Medical Director, at the University Physicians – Charlottesville practice

Model Community Practice: This block rotation at Northridge Internal Medicine, a model faculty practice in Charlottesville, allows for an intensive 1:1 learning experience with faculty mentors.

Women’s Health: This multidisciplinary block rotation exposes the resident to core elements of women’s health; experiences include our Primary Care Gynecology Clinic and our own University Medical Associates Women’s Health Clinic, providing in-depth training in common gynecologic and women’s preventive health services; our Midlife Health Center, providing care to the peri- and post-menopausal woman; and visits to the regional women’s prison under the supervision of one of our top-rated GYN teaching faculty.

Geriatrics & Palliative Care: This block rotation allows residents to work 1:1 with our Geriatrics faculty at multiple community-based geriatrics sites, including University Physicians-JABA and the Colonnades life care community. Residents participate in academic nursing home and interdisciplinary team rounds. Residents also rotate with our Palliative Care team in both the outpatient and inpatient setting and go on home visits with nursing staff from Hospice of the Piedmont.

Resident (center) with faculty physicians and APPs at the University Physicians-Orange practice

PGY2: Rural Community Practice: Residents spend two blocks at our University Physicians-Orange practice in nearby Orange, Virginia, a rural, sociodemographically-diverse community. This practice was established at the inception of the Primary Care Track in the 1970s as a dedicated faculty-resident teaching practice, making it one of the longest running community-based internal medicine teaching practices in the country. Staffed by seven UVA general internist clinician-educators, an NP, and a PA, this rotation offers a true immersion experience in community-based primary care.

PGY3: Community Health Center: This block rotation is at the Central Virginia Health Services, a nationally recognized health center serving the rural poor of nearby Buckingham County, Virginia. As PGY-3s, residents enjoy the greater autonomy of seeing patients under the guidance of Health Center clinicians and get hands-on experience with an array of office-based procedures.

Through both “+1” outpatient clinics and dedicated electives, residents have the opportunity to gain invaluable training in:

• Outpatient clinics in all of the subspecialties of internal medicine
• Unique training in Sports & Musculoskeletal Medicine including Sports Orthopedics; Runners Clinic; and University Medical Associates Procedures Clinic – supervised performance of joint aspiration and injections, and selected office dermatology procedures
• Other non-internal medicine specialty rotations such as Dermatology and Otolaryngology