Introduction

The Family and Community Medicine Clerkship is designed to provide third-year medical students with an introduction to the principles and practice of Family and Community Medicine.

The course exposes the students to the concepts, values and skills that are basic to this discipline. The clerkship provides an understanding and appreciation for Family and Community Medicine through exposure to a system of comprehensive and continuous medical health care for the entire family. As a result, students should understand an approach to care that has an orientation toward the health of the person as a whole. When students complete the clerkship, they should have an appreciation of Family and Community Medicine as a complex specialty that not only shares skills and knowledge with other branches of medicine but also has its own unique body of knowledge, skills and attitudes. The students should become aware of the fact that family physicians provide continuous primary care regardless of age, sex or type of problem (biological, behavioral or social). The students should also understand that the family physician serves as the patient's advocate and coordinator in health related matters including those requiring the utilization of consultative and other community health resources.