The Department of Family and Community Medicine provides primary care education, discovery and clinical services to enhance the health of individuals and families, and the health status of populations and communities.
The education activities of the department occur at the medical student, graduate medical education, and post graduate medical education levels as a part of the production of an appropriate primary care workforce in support of the health care needs of Georgia, the region and a diversity of other community across the nation and world. These educational activities occur in the context of an evolving faculty/resident practice based on patient- and family-centered care (PFCC) principles and practice-based population management concepts. This transformation of all of thedepartment's learning, service and scholarship venues is a strategic component required to ensure that these core activities have substantial relevance to the healthcare challenges faced in a rapidly changing environment. Evidence of the Department's initial transformation efforts is its current National Committee for Quality Assurance (NCQA) recognition of its faculty/resident practice as a level 3 Patient-Centered Medical Home (PCMH).
To fulfill the educational goals of the department, the department uses a large ambulatory faculty/resident patient practice as its central focus for clinical service delivery, education and practice-based scholarship. Students and residents learn clinical concepts and skills while practicing with academic and community-based faculty members providing longitudinal and comprehensive health care to an identified patient population. Care in this learning service venue focuses on the uniqueness of each person and family and their importance in promoting health, managing illnesses and advancing the knowledge of effective and efficient health care delivery to the entire practice population. The Family and Community Medicine Department clinical learning venues contain patients who have the full spectrum of primary health and healthcare needs which provides a diversity of opportunities to teach students and residents skills necessary to provide quality primary care services.
The scholarship activities of the department are mostly designed to improve the effectiveness of care delivered to patients and healthcare outcomes. However, the department does have focused areas of research that engage the primary care aspects of adult patients with Sickle Cell Disease, women's health with emphasis on HPV vaccines and health care disparities.