Clinical Preventive Services

This rotation, which focuses on population health and clinical preventive services, will help you acquire experience in the management of a broad range diseases in primary care, with integration of social determinants of health for chronic disease.

You’ll develop unique skills in the integration of primary care and preventive care (i.e., routine vaccinations and cancer and chronic disease screening and management) at the population level.

Additionally, you’ll learn and implement United States Preventive Services Task Force recommendations in optimizing clinical and preventive care.

You can expect to have daily interactions with faculty during this rotation, as you will evaluate patients and then discuss cases with an attending. You will also partake in case-based teaching and small group discussion with a faculty supervisor.

Looking to reinforce your skills in developing strategies to monitor patients after diagnostic testing or therapeutic intervention? This rotation will be especially helpful to you. 

During this rotation, you will become adept at performing problem-focused histories and exams for new and follow-up patients. You will also make medication, therapy and diagnostic recommendations in the context of your patients’ other medications and overall clinical condition — and there will be times you must make decisions in situations that lack sufficient or clear literature to make definitive recommendations.

Many of the patients you treat may have conditions including:

• coronary artery disease
• hypertension
• sexually transmitted diseases
• diabetes mellitus
• hyperlipidemia

It’s important to us that you are familiar with the multifaceted procedures and details involved in providing longitudinal care. That’s why we strive to deepen your understanding of areas including:

• basic science aspects of gynecological disease, including risk factors, pathogenesis, diagnosis and management 
• lifestyle changes, including dietary approaches, to stop hypertension in hypertensive disorders 
• cervical and breast cancer screening
• immunization
• lifestyle modification strategies for alcohol, substance use disorder and weight management in cardiovascular diseases
• primary and secondary prevention of cardiovascular disease risk factors in patients 
• behavioral modification strategies for smoking cessation in patients 
• screening, brief intervention and referral to treatment for substance use disorders and those at risk for these disorders
• hepatitis C and HIV screening
• ordering pertinent tests related to the renal condition of patients
• performing searches of the medical literature and critically appraising articles that are published in high impact medical journals

We’ll ensure you gain and apply knowledge of established and evolving biomedical, clinical, epidemiological and social-behavioral sciences.

Specifically, this rotation will help you:

• understand risk factors, screening, early detection and treatment of chronic coronary artery disease
• know the “5 –A” approach to counseling for smoking cessation 
• develop skills for intensive behavioral counseling to promote a healthy diet and physical activity for cardiovascular risk reduction 
• deepen you knowledge about immunizations in patients with chronic cardiovascular diseases including coronary artery disease, lipid disorder and heart failure
• implement counseling techniques for lifestyle modification in patients with coronary artery disease and heart failure
• learn screening, brief intervention and referral to treatment for substance use disorder and those at risk for these disorders
• understand and implement weight management strategies in patients with morbid obesity and coronary artery disease, hypertension and heart-failure patients to reduce cardiovascular risk 
• competently diagnosis and treat sexually transmitted diseases and common cardiovascular diseases
• use depression screening in patients with heart disease and arrange appropriate follow-up

Looking to develop your leadership skills? This rotation enables you to do just that. We’ll ask you to mentor and teach junior residents and medicals students, and we’ll expect you to model responsible, ethical behaviors such as:

• committing yourself to carrying out professional responsibilities that supersede self-interest 
• showing integrity, compassion and respect for others 
• demonstrating sensitivity for different patient cultures, races, age and religion 

Additionally, we’ll give you experience assuming a supervisory role and facilitating interactions among members of the team. This rotation will help you feel confident communicating effectively with professionals including nurses, nutritionists, transplant educators, social workers and support staff.

In this enriched learning environment, you’ll implement longitudinal research/QI projects in select areas of priority for the Human Resources and Services Administration (HRSA), such as:

• chronic opiate use
• health equity in cancer prevention and preventive services
• evidence-based primary care and preventive services
• mental health
• population health

These QI projects will be mentored by our program director, Smita Bakhai, MD, MPH, FACP.

You’ll participate in patient care for three to five half day sessions during your first and second year.

This rotation is overseen by: