Curriculum

Social Medicine Curriculum

  • Three-month curriculum in social medicine
    • One month of each year of residency is devoted to teaching social medicine. During these months residents are released from primary hospital responsibilities.
    • Social Medicine Immersion Month: As interns, our trainees participate in an intensive Social Medicine Immersion Month which orients them to the theory and practice of social medicine. Interns work directly with faculty and one another to explore various topics, including application of the biopsychosocial model in clinical practice, fundamentals of physician-patient relations, and advocating for patient rights, among others. An introduction to the colorful history of the Bronx and the many cultural communities that make up its fabric are also emphasized. Residents frequently draw on the skills acquired during this month throughout their training.
    • Information Mastery for Social Medicine: Residents again come together as a group in their second year to review fundamental principles of epidemiology, biostatistics, and evidence-based medicine as they apply to community oriented primary care.
    • Health Systems Rotation: In residents’ 3rd year, they take part in formal teaching seminars that delineate the complexities of the current health care system. Emphasis on patient advocacy and navigation of health systems prepare residents for the practice of primary care medicine upon graduation.
  • Social Medicine Rounds
    • Twice-monthly, lectures, workshops, or seminars addressing the larger context of medicine and health are given. These rounds address issues of public health, international medicine, political activism, cultural competence, and more. They are led by experts available in the New York metropolitan area, or those of national renown.
    • See our most recent and register for our next Social Medicine Rounds
  • Social Medicine Project
    • All residents are required to plan and execute a project drawing upon the skills obtained during their training. The projects can be conducted alone or in groups and are expected to span across the three years of residency. Projects can be designed around education, research, or advocacy. Projects are presented at the close of the PGY-3 year to Montefiore faculty and residents. Residents often go on to publish and more formally present their work. The subject and scope of projects is limited only by 10 residents’ imagination, and many projects continue to remain in practice and evolve even after the resident has graduated. Examples of SM projects include:
    • Decarceraton Medical Record Review
    • PrEP Prescribing in Patients at High Risk of Acquiring HIV
    • Understanding Trauma and its Intersectionality within the Homeless Populaton
    • Redesigning Home Physical Therapy: a Home PT Regimen for Rotator Cuff Tendinopathy
    • Patient Experiences with Contraceptive Care at an FQHC in the South Bronx: A Survey-Based Assessment
    • Re-grounding Family-Centered Perinatal Care at Two Bronx Clinics
    • Re-imagining Medical Spanish Education to Care for LatinX Patients
    • Expanding Universal Screening of Social Determinants of Health
  • Health Equity Rounds: Created and delivered by residents, these once-quarterly meetings cover biomedical, psychosocial, social determinants and structural causes of inequitable health outcomes and use group and peer-learning to offer novel approaches to clinical care.
  • Tri-Track: The Tri-Track sessions offer an intensive, interactive in-person session from 3:15- 6:00 pm with a focus on experiential learning from community members, activists and patients who offer an alternative view to the question of how we provide holistic, equitable healthcare.
  • The Social Medicine Symposium is a time to meet as a community to highlight our social medicine curriculum and social justice work. The symposium includes Social Medicine Showcases: 3 small group sessions focusing on ongoing social medicine initiatives by our present residents and faculty or by department alumni. Annual Harold Wise Memorial Lecture honoring Dr Harold Wise who developed the Residency Program in Social Medicine Family and Social Medicine Poster Day highlighting department research. 

Behavioral Health Curriculum

Fundamental to the RPSM training is the application of an integrated biopsychosocial approach to healthcare that recognizes the importance of understanding medical problems from an individual, familial and community perspective. Unique to our curriculum is the attention given to the patient’s family and social context when addressing problems at the clinical encounter. We promote a family systems model, understood as the best way to apply a biopsychosocial perspective to clinical practice. The psychosocial curriculum at RPSM is integrated throughout the 3 years of training through the following major components: 

  • Psychosocial Precepting: Trained psychologists, working as psychosocial preceptors, are in clinic during most resident clinic sessions to assist residents to better identify and address patients’ psychosocial issues as they arise. Preceptors work collaboratively with medical preceptors and offer expertise in patient assessment, doctor-patient relationship issues as well as intervention planning. In addition, preceptors are available to conduct on-going counseling with particularly complex patients in conjunction with the primary care residents.
  • Observation of Medical Encounters: Throughout the 3 years of residency, residents are observed by the behavioral faculty by sitting in during encounters with patients and later reviewing the patient encounters. These conjoint review sessions provide residents with essential training in conducting effective, efficient, and culturally sensitive patient interviews.
  • Psychosocial Seminar: Regularly during Tuesday afternoon didactics, residents present a particularly challenging or poignant clinical case in collaboration with the psychosocial faculty focusing on a related theme particularly relevant to primary care practice. The aim of the seminar is to teach the integration of the psychosocial, biomedical, and social medicine approaches to the medical encounter as well as to provide a forum in which the residents can share and reflect on their clinical experiences. In addition, residents learn how to assess and manage common clinical problems presented in primary care practice. 

Rotations and Electives

  • Continuity Clinic at Williamsbridge Family Practice Center
    • Williamsbridge Family Practice Center is a FQHC constructed in 1996 and the continuity clinic site for both residents and faculty. The center is in a mixed residential and commercial area in the Northeast Bronx, ten minutes from Montefiore Medical Center and the administrative offices of the residency program. The providers have varied interests. There are clinicians, preceptors and faculty with expertise in sports medicine, reproductive health, HIV, research, palliative care and practice management. The center has several ongoing quality improvement projects. There is a strong commitment to improving the way services are provided to patients by actively incorporating evidence-based medicine in patient management and treatment.
    • Residents are assigned as the PCP for a panel of patients starting Day 1 of their intern year. 

Tracks

  • Montefiore’s program offers five longitudinal tracks, listed below. As part of a track, residents work closely with track mentors to schedule relevant rotations, work on scholarly activities, and career plan.
    • Reproductive Health: The purpose of the Repro Track is to provide Family Medicine residents with enhanced reproductive health care experience. Residents will graduate with competency and confidence in reproductive health care and procedures including contraception and abortion options counseling, medication abortion, first trimester procedural abortion, LARC procedures, managing early pregnancy loss, managing contraceptive side effects, and managing post-abortion questions and complications.
    • Comprehensive HIV Care: The purpose of the Comprehensive HIV Care Track is to prepare family medicine physicians to provide comprehensive primary HIV care through an interdisciplinary approach and strengthen their skills in caring for patients affected by HIV within the context of their life and social experiences. Residents will become competent in the clinical management of HIV/AIDS and associated infections/comorbidities, strengthen their skills in caring for HIV positive patients within the context of their life and social experiences, and develop the skills as a physician advocate for patients affected by HIV. At the completion of the HIV track, residents will be prepared to take the American Academy of HIV Medicine Credentialing Exam to be an HIV Specialist (AAHIVS).
    • Homeless Healthcare: The Homeless Healthcare Track offers a structured path for residents to gain training in care and advocacy for those experiencing homelessness. Objectives of the track include: 1.) Gaining knowledge of the history, epidemiology, and clinical issues of homelessness, 2.) Building upon communication and advocacy skills to better engage with and on behalf of this marginalized population, 3.) Exploring innovative care and policy models and their potential application in our communities.
    • Addiction Medicine: The Montefiore-Einstein Addiction Medicine Mentored Training Program aims to expand the addiction workforce. Trainees will be paired with a mentor to complete a capstone project and receive addiction-related career mentoring. Trainees will rotate through a mix of programs that provide training in addiction treatment, recovery, and harm reduction. Clinical sites include opioid treatment programs, inpatient addiction consult service, officebased addiction medicine clinics, drug user health clinics, ambulatory withdrawal management programs, and chronic pain/opioid management clinics.
    • Maternity Care: The Maternity Care Track provides the opportunity for an enriched experience in caring for young families and people during their childbearing years alongside their infants. The track provides additional training opportunities for family medicine residents who will provide comprehensive maternity care in practice and/or pursue fellowship training. Additional and enhanced learning opportunities include outpatient preconception care, prenatal care, postpartum care, well-infant care, and inpatient intrapartum and postpartum care of people and their infants.