Thank you for serving as a Preceptor for the Primary Care Clerkship!

This page contains information on the clerkship curriculum, suggestions on teaching strategies, and educational resources.

Introduction to the Primary Care Clerkship

The Primary Care Clerkship (PCC) is a required course for all third-year medical students. The 8-week clerkship takes place at regional sites throughout the state. The educational goals for the clerkship center on understanding primary care physicians’ work and role within our health care system. The curriculum focuses on common symptomatic conditions, chronic diseases, and systems of care and learning.

Students are assigned to work 3-4 half-days a week with a family physician and 3-4 half-days a week with either an internist or general pediatrician. The Preceptor Role is the key and unique aspect of the clerkship. Students also meet together weekly with a faculty leader to explore problem based learning cases and enhance their doctor-patient communication skills.

Each student is also required to complete a community project, which we would like them to consult and work with you on. There are several options for this, and ideally should lead to a product that could benefit you and your patients.

What's New for 2009-2010

• The Preceptor Role: Updated introduction to the PCC.
• Preceptor Resources: Useful videos and readings.
• Overview of Weekly Messages: Brief summary of each week.
• Preceptor Feedback Form: We would love to hear from you with comments or suggestions about the course, students, the university, or any other information.
• Student Feedback: Suggestions from former students on how to improve the student experience.
• Motivational Interviewing: Our Doctor-Patient Communication sessions will be changing emphasis to focus on Motivational Interviewing (MI), particularly as applied to working with patients with chronic health problems and behavioral change. The students will be required to use the book Motivational Interviewing in Health Care. This is an excellent and very readable introduction to the lifelong challenge of MI. Unfortunately we do not have funds to provide copies for all of our preceptors at this time, but it is around $20 if you would like to purchase a copy.
• Community Project: Beginning in the ’09-10 academic year, a community project will be required of each student. Students will choose one of several options and work with one of their preceptors to identify and describe an area of mutual interest. Students will be allocated at least 3 half-days during the clerkship to work on this assignment. The student should include his/her project when meeting with the preceptor to discuss the student’s evaluation.
• Curricular Changes: Substance Abuse In, Urogenital problems Out: In reviewing and revising the curriculum, and discussing with other medical school course leaders, we felt that Substance Abuse was sorely neglected in the clinical years, particularly with the transition to a School of Medicine and Public Health. Primary Care seems like a good fit for this area, as so many of the conditions we see are caused or exacerbated by alcohol, smoking and other substances. We have not had a clearly identified curriculum for urogenital problems, and it was felt that there was significant overlap with the OB/Gyn clerkship in this area, so we have chosen to discontinue this focus for now.
• Simulated Cases We have created and/or linked to existing cases for each of the 10 Core Conditions and other learning topics. These provide interactive opportunities for the students to broaden their clinical experience, and may also lead to interesting discussions between you and your student.

Request Volunteer Faculty Appointment

• Contact: Janet Short