About

The mission of the UCSD Primary Care Track is to train our residents to be exceptional outpatient clinicians who incorporate biomedical knowledge, the impact of psychosocial factors and behavior, and social determinants of health in the care of patients. Through individual mentoring and job exploration, we help our residents find the best possible careers that allow them to achieve their professional goals while maintaining a satisfying and full life. The UCSD Primary Care Track fosters a community of outstanding primary care residents, faculty, and alumni.  

Elements of the Primary Care Track

• Primary Care Blocks: 
  • Interns/PGY-1 primary care interns participate in 10 weeks of primary care rotations that provide a broad exposure to the fundamentals of outpatient general medicine.
    • Intern Primary Care Blocks: Primary Care blocks during intern year focus on achieving competence in primary care clinic, as well as exposure to the outpatient management and prevention of common conditions such as heart disease, kidney disease, diabetes, musculoskeletal complaints, chronic pain, and women’s health

• • PGY-2 and PGY-3 primary care residents participate in three customized 4-week primary care rotations (12 weeks total)
    • Resident Primary Care Blocks: Each block consists of a mix of continuity clinics, subspecialty clinics, weekly primary care academic half-days, social justice half-days, and unique clinical and educational opportunities. 

• Elective Rotations:Residents in the primary care pathway work with the pathway director to prioritize elective selections that will best prepare them for primary care practice. They are encouraged to select outpatient electives in endocrinology, dermatology, underserved medicine, correctional medicine, obesity medicine, pain medicine, psychiatry, and surgical subspecialties. These are in addition to the required rotations in geriatrics, gender medicine, musculoskeletal medicine, substance use disorder treatment, and neurology. 

• Events/Site Visits: Special events during the primary care blocks include primary care morning reports, career panels, training for buprenorphine prescribing, long-acting reversible contraception training, and individualized preparation for the job search process. We also take site visits to learn about different models of care, including the prison health care system, integrative medicine, and private practice settings. Our social justice curriculum includes visits to six community agencies focusing on reproductive justice, refugee health, correctional medicine, elder services, environmental justice and healthcare for people experiencing homelessness. 
• Didactics: One afternoon of each rotation is dedicated to didactics related to clinical and non-clinical topics to prepare residents for general internal medicine practice. Examples include outpatient pain management, agenda-setting in primary care, the business of medicine, EMR data analysis, wound care, common ENT complaints, dermatologic procedures, common eye complaints, motivational interviewing, and smoking cessation. 
• Scholarly Work: Residents are given time to complete scholarly work such as clinical vignettes, original research projects, and educational innovations and encouraged to submit their work for presentation or publication. The primary care blocks are scheduled to overlap with the Society of General Internal Medicine regional and national conferences to promote attendance and submission.
• Mentoring: Primary care residents are individually mentored through the career exploration and job search process by the pathway director and an assigned member of the GIM faculty. We hold an annual career panel with representatives from local hiring organizations to facilitate the job application process.
• Specialty Mini-Tracks: Residents in the Primary Care Track have the option of participating in one of two Mini-Tracks:
  • Lifestyle Medicine: self-directed Lifestyle Medicine Curriculum leading to LM board eligibility after graduation, LM experiential group activities, LM rotation, LM faculty mentor
  • HIV Medicine: self-directed HIV curriculum leading to AAHIVM HIV online credentialing and certification, primary care HIV clinic, HIV subspecialty clinics (lipid clinic, PrEP clinic, anoscopy clinic, adolescent clinic, substance use disorder treatment clinic, HIV/HCV co-infection clinic, neurology clinic)