Family Medicine & Community Health Elective Course Description

Neha Wacks, MD, Director  

UMass Students Contact:
Karen Rayla  774-442-4117

Visiting Students Contact:
Michael  Smith Michael.Smith@umassmemorial.org

E1 through M10 (See individual sites for additional info)

Elective Description:   
This elective fulfills the 4th year Medicine Subinternship requirement for UMass students. During this intensive subinternship the medical student functions as a member of a Family Medicine team serving adult patients. This includes taking histories, performing physicals, writing notes and orders, making work rounds, and participating in conferences. The students will learn about inpatient adult medicine delivered from a family practice viewpoint, including a strong focus on evidence-based medicine and patient-centered practice.

Additional information available from site coordinators. Sites Available:

FM Adult Inpatient Resident Team Sub-Internship:  This sub-internship takes place at the Memorial campus in Worcester.  You will spend the block working alongside the UMass Worcester Family Medicine residents on the family medicine adult inpatient floor. Your attendings will be FM attendings who mainly work as hospitalists but you will also get to interact with some FM attendings who come in from the surrounding communities to round on their patients when admitted. Your schedule will mirror that of an intern and you will carry your own patients on the resident team thus you will get an enriching experience of what it is like to be an intern on this service. Your schedule will include nights and weekends.

FM Full Spectrum Sub-internship:  This sub-internship takes place mainly at the Memorial campus in Worcester, but you will also be traveling to a few outpatient clinics in the surrounding areas. This rotation includes 2 weeks of FM adult inpatient working with the FM hospitalist uncovered service (no residents), 1 week of L&D nights with the FM Maternal Child Health Service, and 1 week of FM Newborn Nursery rounds in the morning followed by clinic at FHCW/Barre/Hahnemann. For some of these experiences, you will be working one-on-one with the FM attending. Other times, you will also be working with UMass Worcester Family Medicine senior residents. This sub-internship exposes you to a width breadth of family medicine scopes of practice. Your schedule will include nights and weekends.

HealthAlliance Hospital: This is a medium-sized community hospital that hosts our UMass Fitchburg Family Medicine Residency as its only teaching service. Working with our residents and attendings, the sub-intern will perform an intern's role on a resident team covering adult and pediatric inpatients. The service covers admissions for the residency practice, Community Health Connections, and several community family physicians. Students will spend half a day per week in the office setting.  Felix Chang, MD, Coordinator - Contact: Michael Smith (Michael.Smith@umassmemorial.org)