Each resident is assigned to a Faculty Advisor. This person is usually the PGY1 family medicine blocktime preceptor as well as the person who provides advice and support throughout the two years of residency.
Faculty Advisor Goals
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To individualize the resident's learning opportunities over the 2-3 years in the program.
Residents have many choices. These include the location of family medicine rotations in second year, content and location of electives, amount and content of concurrent selectives, third year training, etc. Even within mandatory rotations there are often known options to be considered as to preceptor, availability of outpatient experience, etc. Effective decisions can best be made when the resident's future career plans, interests, self evaluation skills, competence and personal / family issues are all considered. -
To assess and document attainment of education objectives leading to the practice of Family Medicine.
The certification of a family medicine resident implies satisfactory attainment of knowledge, competence and attitudes in all four principles of family medicine. The certification examination does not measure all (or even most) of the aspects of being an effective family physician. The in-training evaluation forms filled by specialists, community preceptors and GFT family physicians will improve their evaluation contribution. Problems or opportunities for each resident must be detected while there is time to do something about them.
Faculty Advisor Objectives
- To understand the individual resident's learning needs and participate with planning educational experiences which make best use of the department's available resources.
- To allow residents to express educational objectives which reflect individual career plans, perceived educational needs and interests. These choices are usually reflected in the 6 month progress reports.
- To be aware of educational resources available to residents within the Department of Family Medicine.
- To ensure the resident understands the educational objectives of the program. The Advisor will review the documentation from rotations and ensure that the resident is developing an increasing and realistic ability to self-assess educational needs;
- To confront educational needs with the resident as these become evident.
- To consult with the Residency Program Committee when educational needs suggest a departure from usual program curriculum choices.
- To document the attainment of objectives which are not entirely measured on any one rotation or the certification examination. These will emphasize skills or attitudes where short term evaluations can be deceiving (certain attitudes) or where growth can be slow (critical appraisal and information retrieval).
- The Faculty Advisor will communicate with the Program Director at six month intervals requesting their opinion as to the progress of each resident.
