Curriculum

Immersion Rotations

EVMS Family Medicine is one of 25 residency programs across the United States participating in the Family Medicine National Innovation in Continuity Clinic Experience (FM-NICEE) pilot, which grants our program a waiver from the ACGME requirement that states a family medicine resident must have a presence in their continuity clinic at least 40 weeks per academic year.

The program has taken advantage of this waiver by developing "hybrid" rotations, which allow our residents to spend two weeks dedicated to their specialty rotations in each 4-week block with one half day of continuity clinic. The remaining two weeks of the block is spent in continuity clinic.

Advantages of hybrid rotations

• Simpler schedules: less worry about balancing clinic with other experiences during a rotation
• Better experience with community faculty due to less interrupted time you will spend with them during a rotation
• Ability to still maintain continuity with your patients due to maintaining at least one half-day of continuity clinic during your specialty rotations 

PGY-1

• Clinical Inpatient and Outpatient Orientation – 4 weeks in July for all 16 PGY-1s 
• Continuity Clinic – 13 weeks 
• Inpatient Adult Medicine Days (Norfolk General and Maryview Hospital) - 12 weeks 
• Inpatient Adult Medicine Night Float (Maryview) - 4 weeks 
• Geriatrics (VA Hampton) - 4 weeks 
• Labor and Delivery (Norfolk General) - 4 weeks 
• Inpatient Pediatric Medicine (Children’s Hospital of the King’s Daughter) - 3 weeks 
• Ambulatory Pediatrics – 2 weeks 
• Newborn Nursery  - 2 weeks 
• ICU – 2 weeks 
• Behavioral Medicine– 1 week 
• Ultrasound/Elective – 1 week 

PGY-2

• Continuity Clinic – 18 weeks 
• Inpatient Adult Medicine Days (Norfolk General and Maryview Hospital) – 8 weeks  
• Inpatient Adult Medicine Night Float (Norfolk General and Maryview Hospital) – 4 weeks 
• Back Up/Self-Study/Research – 3 weeks 
• Adult Emergency Medicine (Maryview and Harbourview Hospital) – 2 weeks 
• Pediatric Emergency Medicine (Children’s Hospital of the King’s Daughters) – 2 weeks 
• Ambulatory Pediatrics – 2 weeks 
• Nephrology/Elective – 2 weeks 
• Cardiology/Elective – 2 weeks 
• Geriatrics – 2 weeks 
• Musculoskeletal/Elective – 2 weeks 
• Surgery – 2 weeks 
• Women’s Health/Elective – 2 weeks 
• Procedure/Specialty Clinics – 1 week 

PGY-3

• Continuity Clinic – 23 weeks 
• Electives – 8 weeks 
• Inpatient Adult Medicine Days (Norfolk General and/or Maryview Hospital) – 4 weeks 
• Inpatient Adult Medicine Night Float (Norfolk General and Maryview Hospital) – 4 weeks 
• Back Up/Self-Study/Research – 3 weeks 
• Adult Emergency Medicine – 2 weeks (Sentara Leigh Hospital) 
• Ambulatory Pediatrics – 2 weeks 
• Dermatology/Elective – 2 weeks 
• Endocrine/Elective – 2 weeks 
• Procedure/Specialty Clinics – 2 weeks  

Longitudinal

• Continuity Clinical Practice 
• Didactics 
• Workshops 
• Practice Management 
• Scholarly Activities (case presentations, monthly journal clubs, quarterly M&Ms, etc) 
• Self-Study 

Continuity clinics

EVMS Family Medicine has two Family Medicine Practice sites that our 16 PGY-1s are assigned to at the beginning of their training (i.e. your “continuity clinic”).

• One Family Medicine Practice site is Portsmouth Family Medicine in Portsmouth and is adjacent to Maryview Hospital.
• Our second Family Medicine Practice Site is Ghent Family Medicine in Norfolk and is on the main EVMS campus adjacent to Norfolk General Hospital.

Both continuity clinics are operated in a similar manner, have identical faculty to resident staffing ratios and are about four miles apart from each other. Each continuity clinic has dedicated conference rooms and study areas for residents to utilize during their training.  

Following Match, and after we take your preferences into consideration, you will be assigned to either Portsmouth Family Medicine or Ghent Family Medicine. Approximately 7 –9 PGY1s are assigned to each clinic. You will maintain your continuity panel at one of these two clinical sites over the three years of training, however, the remaining rotations you will have during your residency will be assigned irrespective of your continuity clinic location.

All of our residents regardless of their assigned continuity clinic will spend an equal amount of time on our hospital services, specialty rotations, electives, etc. Additionally, you will also be scheduled for procedure clinic sessions, perform hospital follow ups, participate in inter-professional clinics and serve as back up at both Portsmouth Family and Ghent Family regardless of where your continuity clinic is located. Our residency program ensures that your exposure to patients is maintained at both clinical sites despite keeping your continuity panel at one clinic. 

Community clinics 

Interns spend multiple mornings at Sentara's Ambulatory Care Clinic (ACC), providing care for Hampton Roads' underserved population. Many ACC patients had previously been patients of Ghent Family Medicine in Hofheimer Hall; the department strives to continue to provide continuity care to our patients, in partnership with Sentara and its access to community resources and services such as Medication Assistance Plans.

Residents also have the opportunity to spend Thursday evenings at the Health Outreach Partnership of EVMS Students (HOPES) clinic, the first and only student-run free clinic in Virginia. At HOPES, residents help medical students serve the uninsured residents of Norfolk, including Spanish-speaking patients during Clínica Esperanza evenings at HOPES.

Residents also have an opportunity to volunteer at the HERs Domestic Violence Shelter in the city of Portsmouth. At the HERs Shelter, you’ll see patients with faculty supervision for acute illnesses and you will counsel and care for patients (children and adults) who have been victims of domestic violence.  

The Family Medicine Residency offers residents the opportunity to develop their chosen Family Medicine interests with elective time utilization. Many of these tailored experiences have more electives than the available elective months given to residents; this enables the resident to choose which ones will best suit their academic needs. If a resident has an interest in a tailored experience, they should meet with the program director within the first six months of their residency to help establish goals for their residency.

For more information about tailored experiences, please email us at fmr@evms.edu. 

Conferences

Curriculum at EVMS Family Medicine includes a variety of learning opportunities including:

• Quarterly grand rounds 
• Weekly didactics every Wednesday afternoon covering topics including: 
  • Hospital medicine and Critical Care Medicine 
  • Pediatrics 
  • Obstetrics and Gynecology 
  • Dermatology 
  • Geriatrics 
  • Nephrology 
  • Nutrition 
  • Psychiatry 
  • Rheumatology 
  • Pharmacology 
  • Practice Management and Quality Improvement 
  • Workshops (EKGs review, skin biopsy procedures and suturing, women’s health/OBGYN procedures) and Code Blue/Rapid Response Training 

Resident life

Intern year

The internship is often considered the hardest year among the three years of family medicine residency, but you will have tons of fun. Every day is a learning day. Interns participate in a comprehensive orientation schedule in the first days of their internship, preparing them to be more self-sufficient and comfortable conducting the daily responsibilities of residency. Faculty and senior residents are always available and friendly. We offer regular resident support groups with our behavioral medicine faculty, which provide a secure and supportive environment to discuss residency successes and challenges, both in the hospital and outside of it.

Second and third years

Senior residents will have more responsibility in supervising interns and teaching medical students. Hours are more flexible, access to elective rotations becomes more prevalent, and residents have more spare time to enjoy the Hampton Roads area.