Family & Community Medicine

Welcome to Family & Community Medicine

Family medicine is a broad medical specialty that provides ongoing, comprehensive health care for the individual and the family. The Department of Family & Community Medicine's scope encompasses all ages, genders, organ systems, and disease entities. Family physicians are fully prepared to serve in clinics, hospitals, and emergency care settings in urban, suburban, and rural communities.

The department introduces the principles of the Patient-Centered Medical Home to students in our third-year clerkship. Interactive teaching modules focus on primary-care communication skills, chronic disease management models of care, preventive care, and continuous clinical quality improvement. These modules introduce skills that we anticipate will be part of the essential knowledge base of primary care physicians as our healthcare system evolves from its current encounter-based focus to a population management, outcomes-driven healthcare system.

We continuously reinvigorate our scholarly mission through efforts to create a regional clinic-based research network, with the goal of participating in national research initiatives of interest to primary care physicians and patients. We maintain academic affiliations with family medicine residencies in our region, and participate in regional grand rounds program of continuing medical education.