Ambulatory Rotations
Continuity Clinics
Residents in all training tracks have a continuity clinic one afternoon per week. Residents are assigned to one of five clinic sites for the duration of their training. The med/peds residents have their continuity clinic either at a community clinic where they see both medicine and pediatric patients and are precepted by a med/peds board-certified attending or they have alternating clinics in medicine and pediatrics, with the medicine clinic experience at either UCSD Internal Medicine Group Practice or one of the community clinic sites. Research residents also maintain a general medicine continuity clinic during their clinical years of training. There is a primary care conference at the beginning of clinic at each site based on the Yale Primary Care Curriculum and all residents complete specified ambulatory modules on-line (Johns Hopkins curriculum) for each year of their training.
Primary Care
Housestaff rotate through a Primary Care Clinical Series (PRIME) which focuses on exposing residents to issues commonly seen by primary care providers in setting where they can be taught by specialists. Each PRIME rotation has several focused clinical experiences in medicine and non-medicine specialties including Cardiology, Neurology, Endocrine, Nephrology, Orthopedics, Dermatology, Gastroenterology, Rheumatology, Hematology/Oncology, Hospice, Head and Neck Surgery, Psychiatry, Rehab and Sports Medicine, and Optometry.
Emergency & Urgent Care
Interns and residents rotate through ambulatory blocks in the Emergency Department at the VA Medical Center where they see patients with a wide range of urgent medical problems and work closely with experienced clinical faculty.
Geriatrics
Residents work with Geriatrics faculty to see patients in a wide variety of clinical settings including a comprehensive outpatient multidisciplinary Alzheimer's facilty, skilled nursing facilities, assisted living facilities, home visits and hospice. They also participate in multi-disciplinary rounds on the inpatient geriatrics service, evaluation.
Women's Health
Residents are exposed to acute and primary care gynecology, infertility, urogynecology, breast cancer clinic and cervical dysplasia clinics.
Neurology
Residents rotate through a variety of general and specialty neurology clinics at the VA, UCSD Hillcrest and UCSD Thornton. They work with the neurology faculty to evaluate new and returning patients and develop diagnostic and management strategies for these patients.
Owen Clinic
This is a primary care clinic for patients with HIV disease. Categorical, research and med/peds residents have the option of rotating through this HIV clinic for 2-4 week blocks.
Kaiser Endocrinology
This is a 4-week elective rotating through Kaiser Permanente Endocrinology clinics, which is a large HMO organization in California. This rotation is an option for PGY-3 or 4 (med/peds) residents.
Dermatology
This is a required 2-week rotation for those residents who have not had exposure to dermatology on VA PRIME. Residents see a variety of dermatological disorders and have opportunities to perform outpatient procedures such as punch or shave biopsies.
Medicine Sub-Specialty consult/elective rotations
These consist of 2-week or 4-week block rotations in all of the medicine sub-specialties which include a combination of sub-specialty ambulatory clinics with inpatient consult experience. The amount of sub-specialty ambulatory clinic time varies with each discipline.