Primary Care Residency Program
Ambulatory Block Rotations
Ambulatory Specialty Block
All categorical residents have three months of ambulatory block time each year. To complement the residents’ experience in the hospital-based clinic, the ambulatory block emphasizes community-based education. PGY-2 and PGY-3 residents rotate on ambulatory block for three continuous months while the interns’ ambulatory time is distributed through the year. Interns spend one month in a community primary care teaching practice, one month on a geriatric rotation at the West Haven VA Hospital, and one in the Waterbury Hospital emergency room. They also participate in 3 of the psychosocial curriculum activities during this time: medical interview tutorials, primary care psychiatry consultation clinic, and the behavioral change counseling clinic. PGY-2 residents spend two months in a community primary teaching practice one month rotating through an ambulatory specialty block (see below). PGY-3 residents spend the entire three months in a community primary care teaching practice.
While on ambulatory block, residents maintain their weekly continuity clinic. In addition, all of the residents on ambulatory block convene one half-day per week for ambulatory report (to discuss recent outpatient cases) and our ambulatory core curricula. These 24 seminars are coordinated with the experiential components of our ambulatory curricula. They include series of sessions on evidence-based medicine, psychosocial medicine, health promotion/disease prevention, medical ethics, women's health, community medicine, and clinical updates on HIV, diabetes, hypertension, and dermatology. The seminars are regularly updated and evaluated for content and educational effectiveness.
Ambulatory Specialty Block (PGY-2)
Dermatology
Allergy and immunology
Substance abuse center (addiction medicine)
Rheumatology
Neurology
Planned Parenthood
HIV practice
Endocrinology
Pulmonary medicine
Chronic disease management (diabetes clinic)
Quality Improvement audit