2009-2010 SCHEDULE OF ROTATIONS

Our three year curriculum is composed of largely community based rotations at the 200 bed  Good Samaritan Hospital as well as at neighboring physician's offices in the Lebanon area. A small number of required rotations occur at  Hershey Medical Center during the three years. The first month of our program ("Family and Community Medicine Month") is spent familiarizing our new residents to the health services available in our community, to our patient population, and to the many people who make our program function so successfully.

Our curriculum is strongly influenced by the needs of the people in our community of 114,000 and exposes residents to a wide variety of community oriented experiences including school health, community family planning agencies, and a well-developed home health program. During the past several years we have paid particular attention to developing our "At-Risk" program which allows our physicians to closely track children and families in need and at particular risk because of a variety of social problems including domestic violence, substance abuse, teenage mothers, child abuse, and poor maternal-infant bonding.

The majority of our rotations occur in Lebanon with local teaching physicians in and around The Good Samaritan Hospital.  Six of 36 months are scheduled at the Milton S. Hershey Medical Center (HMC)

HMC = Hershey Medical Center Rotation

Five of our family physicians actively practice obstetrics and supervise the deliveries by our house staff at  The Good Samaritan Hospital. Five additional family physicians in our community also actively practice obstetrics making our hospital  Labor and Delivery department family physician "friendly." Our residents also work under the supervision of our supportive community Ob/Gyn physicians in providing prenatal care and deliveries for a portion of their patient population.

Our Pediatrics curriculum consists of 4 months of training occurring in all three years and emphasizing the outpatient care of children.

Experiences in behavioral medicine, geriatric medicine, and practice management are provided longitudinally throughout the entire residency.

Inpatient family medicine months occur in all years of training, emphasizing continuity of care and the multi-disciplinary team approach to inpatient care. Residents are supervised by the residency faculty who see patients in conjunction with each resident who primarily manages the care of his/her patient in the hospital in all years of training. A resident team composed of a senior resident and an intern cover the hospital each month and focus on maximizing the educational experience for the residents including supervision of Morning Report.

The office experience in family medicine forms the basic training ground for experiencing longitudinal patient care and allows each resident to develop those behavioral, technical, and cognitive skills which form the essence of the family physician. First year residents spend 1 or 2 half days per week in the office, second years spend 3 or 4 half days per week in the office, and during the third year, each resident spends half of his/her time in the office setting.

Elective time (4 months total) is provided in both the second and the third year with a wide array of opportunities available in and around our community. Elective rotations at distant sites may be arranged. Popular electives include experiences in Pulmonology, Private Practice, Obstetrics, Sports Medicine, and Nephrology.

There are two office sites where residents and faculty see their patients...the main office in the city of Lebanon houses 17 exam rooms including 2 procedure rooms, and our smaller rural office site in the eastern part of the county (ELCO) provides care to the farming community including a large Amish and Mennonite population. Residents may be assigned to either site for continuity of care.