Practice based interprofessional education opportunities are proposed as a mechanism for health professionals to learn teamwork skills and gain an understanding of the roles of others. Primary care is an area of practice that offers a promising option for interprofessional student learning. In this study, we investigated what and how students from…

Observation of 15 nursing students and 15 clinical supervisors in primary care settings revealed that student learning was holistic and meaningful when patient-oriented approaches were used. However, many settings used task-centered approaches, resulting in fragmented learning. (SK)

Noting the problem of a gap between residency training and primary care practice, the author considers five issues faced by primary care graduate education (the setting, the patients, the curriculum, the students, and the faculty) and the three disciplines involved: internal medicine, pediatrics, and family medicine. (JT)

Benefits of hospital-based internship and residency programs for training psychologists are discussed, along with issues concerning licensing or certification. In hospitals, interns and residents are exposed to unusual and diverse forms of physical and mental pathology, as well as contact with a diverse patient population crossing all ages, racial…

The experiences of baccalaureate student nurses, from layperson to novice nurse, was studied. Paradigm cases of five senior and five sophomore baccalaureate students were transcribed and analyzed for common meanings and themes. The paradigms concern touching patients, giving shots/creating pain, caring for and being intimate with young patients,…

The initial phase of the Primary Care Education Program, a course of instruction for a limited number of students at the University of Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry, is described. It was designed to increase knowledge of primary care and doctor-patient relationship, and knowledge of a variety of modes of structuring health care…

The audit of medical care in primary care practices has proven to be a valuable tool for teaching the essentials of efficient health care delivery to medical students at the University of Vermont. Practice standards and methods are continually revised based on the audit of the providers of care and the curriculum is updated based on student…

The variables affecting ratings of the importance of biopsychosocial versus biomedical assessments are examined. It was hypothesized that students would perceive the relative importance of biomedical and biopsychosocial assessments differentially based on the diagnoses of the patients and the students' level of training. (MLW)

The spectrum of patients seen in a traditional hospital-based training program is compared with patients seen in the University of Minnesota's ambulatory care clinic. Records were kept of the author's primary care experience with 687 patients. (LBH)

Data concerning time with patients and time with attending physicians tended to be inversely associated with patient volume in a time-study of family practice residents. The results are used to illustrate and develop some issues involved in the design of residency experiences for primary care physicians. (Editor/LBH)

A comparison of the ability of 12 students trained in an outpatient setting to examine hospitalized patients with that of students trained in the traditional inpatient-oriented program revealed no difference between the two groups. This finding has implications for curriculum planners seeking ways to restructure fundamental courses that develop…

The experience of two combined residency programs in internal medicine and pediatrics is reviewed. The difficulty for residents of achieving competence in two disciplines is compounded by a lack of faculty role models. Success will depend on the ability of graduates to offer special talents to academic and clinical settings. (Author/MLW)

An academic general medicine clinic (GMC) was studied and profiles were generated to determine current patterns, shortcomings, and potential solutions. Conclusions include that GMC offers insufficient variety of patient presentations for optimal postgraduate medical education and inadequate accessibility for comprehensive medical care. (Author/JMD)

The recurrent failure to adequately conceptualize the medical meaning of "disease" is explained as a function of the way this is taught in the curriculum, since it is transmitted within the internal structure relationships of the medical course. Curriculum reform therefore must stress educational structure as well as content change. (Author/LBH)

A biopsychosocial model used in an attempt to integrate physical, psychological, and social data into a matrix that facilitates clinical problem solving is described. The purpose of the training was to expand the resident's understanding of the emotional aspects of patients' problems and his/her own difficulties in using such understanding. (MLW)