Curriculum

The MSM Family Medicine Residency Program goals are listed below:

  • Provide the Family Practice resident with the knowledge, skills, and attitudes to competently manage medical patients with simple and complex problems.
  • Provide a foundation which can be expanded and refined during medical subspecialty rotations.
  • Provide the resident with knowledge about how family dynamics and behavioral medicine principles apply to the hospitalized medical patient.
  • Teach the resident to utilize the concept of the “healthcare team” whereby the physician is the coordinator of the health team’s efforts, calling upon support and input from personnel in nursing, social work specialty clinics, nutrition, administration, and chaplain staff.
  • Teach the resident to recognize the limits of one’s own knowledge and skills and institute timely and appropriate consultation.
  • Teach the resident to exhibit patterns of inter-professional collaboration and cooperation which enhance patient care.
  • Teach the resident to recognize that hospital care is merely one phase on a continuum of longitudinal and continuous medical care.
  • Train family physicians to provide comprehensive, continuing care to all of their patients.
  • Stimulate the analytical attitude toward the most efficient and effective use of the physician’s time, personnel, and facilities in order to provide optimal care to patients.
  • Implement preventive services and consistently educate patients about health.
  • Train Family Medicine residents in the six core competencies, as identified by the ACGME:
    • Patient care
    • Medical knowledge
    • Practice-based learning and improvement
    • Interpersonal and communication skills
    • Professionalism
    • Systems-based practice

 Program Elements

Morning Report

  • Morning Report occurs Fridays at 8:00 a.m. virtually.
  • Residents on the inpatient service and all residents assigned to the CFHC are required to attend.
  • Night float residents are required to attend Morning Report post-shift.

Conferences/Didactic Sessions

  • Residency didactic sessions are held each Wednesday, 12:30 p.m.–5:00 p.m., unless otherwise notified of any changes. 

Clinical Rotations

  • ACGME-required and carefully selected program-required clinical rotations are essential to the development of the clinical and interpersonal skills necessary for future independent practice. 

Continuity Clinic

  • Central to the training of a Family Physician is the establishment of a panel of continuity patients in the ambulatory setting. As such, each resident sees patients in the Morehouse Healthcare Comprehensive Family Healthcare Center, our established Family Medicine Practice (FMP) site, throughout all three program years.

Scholarly Activity

  • The program provides a longitudinal research curriculum that prepares residents to produce quality scholarly activity.
  • Residents are required to complete a PSQI “mini-project” during their Practice Management rotation and a larger research project in fulfillment of their PGY3 research requirement.
  • Aside from meeting these requirements, the program encourages scholarly activity in the form of letters to the editor, case reports, conference presentations, non-required PSQI projects, and the like to foster a sense of inquiry and establish the habit of contributing to the body of knowledge in our discipline.