Primary Care Residency Program
Mission Statement
The primary mission of the Yale Primary Care Internal Medicine Residency Program is to train houseofficers to attain the knowledge, skills and attitudes to become excellent general internists who are committed to upholding the highest ethical and professional standards of medicine. We seek to train physicians from diverse backgrounds to become leaders and agents of change in whatever setting they choose for their career. Faculty are actively involved as teachers, role model clinicians, scholars, advisers and mentors who are committed to helping trainees identify the niches of medicine in which they will be most successful and satisfied.
Housestaff learn to provide compassionate, respectful, patient-centered, cost-effective, and evidence-based care in a variety of academic and community settings. The primary instructional strategy is experiential learning, which occurs through the residents’ meaningful patient care responsibility and graduated autonomy. Through direct observation and feedback from faculty and peers, trainees first learn the fundamentals of patient care. Over time, trainees develop the skills of self-evaluation and reflective practice in order to improve their own skills throughout their career. Graduates are prepared to enter the practice of general internal medicine or to pursue fellowship training, either in general internal medicine or the subspecialties of internal medicine.
There are several specific goals for houseofficers training in the Yale Residency Program in General Internal Medicine that reflect the unique values, strengths, and resources of the Program. These include:
- Developing leadership skills
- Learning a biopsychosocial approach to patient care
- Pursuing experiences with patient-centered research
- Participating in activities that improve the health of our community
- Providing leadership in efforts to improve quality of care
- Participating in research and curriculum development that advance graduate medical education nationally
This is all achieved while developing greater personal awareness through structured educational activities and informal daily interactions with colleagues from culturally diverse backgrounds in an academic environment that blends community and hospital-based medicine.