Inpatient/Outpatient US Clinical Experience in Family Medicine in Los Angeles

Information about this clinical experience:

You will be under the supervision of a physician who is board-certified in Family Medicine with considerable teaching experience. This physician is on staff at several long-term acute care hospitals in Orange County.

The mornings will begin at long-term acute care facilities or skilled nursing units providing care to medically complex patients requiring extended time for recovery. On average, 15-20 patients are seen every day between several facilities. In these institutions, you will learn how to care for their diverse and many needs, dealing with such issues as polypharmacy, dementia and delirium care, capacity assessments, end-of-life planning, and fall risk reduction. You will also see how care of these patients requires input from and collaboration with families and interprofessional staff (e.g., nurses, physical and occupational therapists, etc.). 

Following these hospital rounds, your morning will continue in the preceptor’s outpatient practice, seeing on average 8-12 patients per day. In the clinic, you will see a range of issues with a focus on health promotion, disease prevention, and diagnosis and treatment of both acute and chronic illness. As a significant number of patients will have chronic conditions, this will be an excellent opportunity to become familiar with how family medicine physicians assess, monitor, and treat these problems. Of note, this physician is utilizing technology to provide better care for these patients. For example, through remote monitoring used by the practice, this physician can acquire information from patients between visits, allowing more frequent data points and the opportunity to change or adjust treatment at quicker intervals. This is part of a chronic care management program that the physician participates in, and this experience will allow you to become more familiar with how physicians tackle these challenging issues.

During your experience, you will learn the following U.S. medical practices under the preceptor’s supervision (please note that this experience remains within the regulations of California pertaining to the unlicensed practice of medicine):

• Taking patient histories.

• Performing physical exams under the physician's supervision.

• Presenting patients.

• Writing or entering clinic progress notes (Practice Fusion EMR)

• Researching the literature to answer clinical questions at the point of care.

• Educating patients.

• Spending time with other healthcare professionals in the office to understand their roles and responsibilities.

Please note that, at times, hospital rounds will take place with the preceptor's colleague.