Combined Family Medicine / Internal Medicine Residency Program Program Narrative

The Eastern Virginia Medical School's Combined Family Medicine/ Internal Medicine Residency Program began in July of 1995. The combined residency incorporates the strengths of family and internal medicine training and prepares trainees to manage the medically complex patient and treat a wide spectrum of ambulatory and hospitalized patients.

Program Overview

The program is four years in duration and we are approved to offer three positions in each training year. As of July 1, 2008, 30 Combined Family Medicine/Internal Medicine residents have completed training. Successful completion of the training program qualifies graduates to sit for the board examinations in both disciplines. Our graduates have performed well on both boards.

Over 50 percent of the training takes place in an ambulatory setting, and ambulatory continuity training makes up over 30 percent of the training experience. Longitudinal continuity ambulatory experience, supervised by Family Practice and Internal Medicine faculty, takes place in the offices of Ghent Family Medicine on the Eastern Virginia Medical School’s main campus. The Department of Family Medicine’s Ghent Family Medicine Residency, and the Department of Internal Medicine’s Categorical Internal Medicine Residency both fully accredited and in existence over 30 years ago, provide support for the Combined Residency.

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Block Rotation Schedule
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Block Rotation Schedule

By taking advantage of overlapping rotations and available elective time, it has been possible to design a four-year block rotation schedule that satisfies the requirements of board certification in Family Medicine and Internal Medicine.

Inpatient adult medicine training takes place on general internal medicine ward teams and internal medicine subspecialty consultative services. Combined residents spend six months during their second and third program years as senior medicine inpatient residents responsible for supervising first year Categorical Internal Medicine and Combined Family Medicine/ Internal Medicine residents, and M-III medicine clerks. PGY-4 combined residents spend one month on the Family Medicine inpatient team. Obstetric training is obtained under the direction of the Department of Family Medicine and takes place at nearby Maryview Hospital, a community hospital whose new women’s health center is focused on uncomplicated deliveries.

Each resident has three months of "tailoring experience" which can be utilized during Program years 3 & 4. This affords residents the opportunity to acquire additional skills required for their chosen practice. These experiences might include rotating with a hospitalist group, acquiring additional obstetric experience, garnering additional procedural skills, practicing medicine abroad or cultivating expertise in managed care systems. Pediatric training takes place in conjunction with the Department of Pediatrics at community sites and in the modern Children’s Hospital of The King’s Daughters on the Eastern Virginia Medical School’s main campus.

Please note that ambulatory training takes place during all block rotations. In addition to their weekly continuity ambulatory experience, combined residents spend five months in block ambulatory continuity training in the family practice center.

Ambulatory Training

Consistent with family medicine's long-standing emphasis on training in an ambulatory setting and internal medicine's recognition that greater emphasis on ambulatory and community-based training is needed, over 30% of the combined residents' training is longitudinal ambulatory training. This is achieved by a combination of weekly ambulatory half-days and five block ambulatory months.

Additional ambulatory training, which takes place on rotations such as Gynecology, Dermatology, Rheumatology, Geriatrics, Cardiology, Pediatrics, Endocrinology, Obstetrics, and the office based surgical subspecialties results in approximately 50 percent of the combined resident's training takes place in an ambulatory setting.

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