Philosophical Principles of Riverside Family Medicine Residency Program

Establishment of the postgraduate education programs at Riverside Regional Medical Center has increased levels of intellectual curiosity and critical analysis of day to day patient care activities. This ultimately serves to enhance the quality of patient care and benefit both the patients and their physicians.

Clinical learning occurs best in an atmosphere of:

• Repeated exposure to patients with both normal physiology and clinical disease.

The presence of enthusiastic, knowledgeable teachers to assist the resident in recognizing, synthesizing and interpreting the vast array of patient problems and data enhances the learning process. As the largest full service medical center on the Virginia Peninsula, Riverside provides the resident with exposure to a wide range of clinical pathology.

• Graduated responsibility under the supervision of dedicated supportive faculty.

Although over 321 physicians comprise our clinical faculty, we realize that dedicated effort and recognized clinical expertise do not in themselves guarantee first rate teaching ability. Consequently, the Medical Education office continually attempts to identify within each specialty those clinicians who are not only inspirational role models, but are also sensitive to the resident's current level of expertise. Whenever possible, freedom exists for the resident to select an attending physician with whom to work.

• Continuous feedback, constructive criticism, and periodic review.

The high faculty to resident ratio allows for development of close association and collegial relationships on all clinical rotations. Faculty routinely offer feedback to the housestaff regarding diagnostic abilities, therapeutic interventions, technical abilities and attitudinal qualities. Clinical records are systematically reviewed. Monthly evaluations of both the house officer and clinical attending physician are completed and discussed at the conclusion of each rotation.

Postgraduate education proceeds at multiple levels and can be characterized as a continuum from graduation to retirement. Since residency training provides a concentrated exposure to a variety of patients and their disease processes, one often feels the need to develop rapidly the diagnostic and technical abilities essential for optimum patient care. The medical education process, however, spreads over a career, and many of the cognitive and technical capabilities acquired during residency are ultimately obsolete. Consequently, the postgraduate residency programs at Riverside attempt to address the longer lasting attitudinal and behavioral factors of medical practice and the concepts of self education as part of the process of life long learning.

The transfer of information and process of clinical learning occurs in a variety of ways and is specific for each resident. Riverside Regional Medical Center acknowledges the differences in learning styles and provides a wide variety of learning opportunities.

Riverside Regional Medical Center is accredited as a provider of Continuing Medical Education by the Committee on Medical Education of the Medical Society of Virginia. A comprehensive conference schedule with prestigious speakers from both Virginia and out of state institutions supplements the herculean task of staying abreast of the medical literature.

Daily rounds and small group discussion are routine for all clinical rotations. The Health Sciences Library houses a full complement of the latest audio digests, medical journals, videotapes and periodicals. The library also provides a computerized medical literature search that accesses continuously updated material for research and review, as well as internet access to other medical databases. Local conferences are videotaped and filed in the library for personal viewing. Internet access is also available at the Family Medicine Center for literature searches and for finding other up-to-date medical information.

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