What to do when your family med rotation is 6 months?

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UCA2390 said:
Hello!
My school (US allopathic) is a bit unique in that our first rotation of 3rd year is a 6 month long family medicine rotation in a community practice. After that, we do 4 week rotations of Surgery, IM, Peds, Psych, OB, one elective.. EM in 4th year. This is something new they are doing, so I have no upper class to ask about this.

For evaluation in 3rd year during our 6 month family medicine rotation, at week 12 we take the NBME Comprehensive Clinical Science Examination (I dont know what this is). Then at week 24 we take the NBME Subject Exam in Family Medicine.

If you had 6 months to prepare for these two things and learn family medicine (and knew that following family medicine you had 4 weeks of Surgery, then only 4 weeks of Internal Medicine) How would you tackle it?

I appreciate all views!
Click to expand...
what-the-hell-o.gif




But seriously that seems terrible. I guess they REALLY want to address that PCP "shortage"
 
UCA2390 said:
Hello!
My school (US allopathic) is a bit unique in that our first rotation of 3rd year is a 6 month long family medicine rotation in a community practice. After that, we do 4 week rotations of Surgery, IM, Peds, Psych, OB, one elective.. EM in 4th year. This is something new they are doing, so I have no upper class to ask about this.

For evaluation in 3rd year during our 6 month family medicine rotation, at week 12 we take the NBME Comprehensive Clinical Science Examination (I dont know what this is). Then at week 24 we take the NBME Subject Exam in Family Medicine.

If you had 6 months to prepare for these two things and learn family medicine (and knew that following family medicine you had 4 weeks of Surgery, then only 4 weeks of Internal Medicine) How would you tackle it?

I appreciate all views!
Click to expand...
Good god. I have nothing useful to add here, except to offer my condolences...
 
O Grady said:
what-the-hell-o.gif




But seriously that seems terrible. I guess they REALLY want to address that PCP "shortage"
Click to expand...

Theoretically, after 6 months of a well designed FM experience, a student should emerge with the following skills/knowledge
- splinting/other MSK
- suturing and removing sutures
- longitudinal following of an OB patient.
- Should know a lot about outpatient OB/GYN
- basic Peds
- an understanding of most diseases seen by IM (albeit from a chronic outpatient management not an acute worsening).
- some neuro
- see patients before they get an operation and after
- a lot of cardiology/EKG reading etc
- in addition to the normal primary care stuff.

This assumes a well designed clerkship and motivated student. If it's the usual work 3-4 days per week, all weekends off, and you just shadow a family doctor and do no real patient care, it'll be a total waste.
 
lazymed said:
Theoretically, after 6 months of a well designed FM experience, a student should emerge with the following skills/knowledge
- splinting/other MSK
- suturing and removing sutures
- longitudinal following of an OB patient.
- Should know a lot about outpatient OB/GYN
- basic Peds
- an understanding of most diseases seen by IM (albeit from a chronic outpatient management not an acute worsening).
- some neuro
- see patients before they get an operation and after
- a lot of cardiology/EKG reading etc
- in addition to the normal primary care stuff.

This assumes a well designed clerkship and motivated student. If it's the usual work 3-4 days per week, all weekends off, and you just shadow a family doctor and do no real patient care, it'll be a total waste.
Click to expand...
I didn't mean to imply there was nothing to be gained. It just seems like an unusual approach, and one I wouldn't be very excited about.
 
lazymed said:
Theoretically, after 6 months of a well designed FM experience, a student should emerge with the following skills/knowledge
- splinting/other MSK
- suturing and removing sutures
- longitudinal following of an OB patient.
- Should know a lot about outpatient OB/GYN
- basic Peds
- an understanding of most diseases seen by IM (albeit from a chronic outpatient management not an acute worsening).
- some neuro
- see patients before they get an operation and after
- a lot of cardiology/EKG reading etc
- in addition to the normal primary care stuff.

This assumes a well designed clerkship and motivated student. If it's the usual work 3-4 days per week, all weekends off, and you just shadow a family doctor and do no real patient care, it'll be a total waste.
Click to expand...
Yes we are all in a community with a corresponding hospital, so we are expected to follow patients to hospital for care if they are being seen for surgery, and also have the opportunity to go into the ED for shifts within the community. I agree that it will take a decent amount of self-motivation from the students part because you're correct the office is only open 8-5 no weekends. We are also expected to attend rounds at the community hospital and follow any patients care there. Thanks for your response!
 
lazymed said:
Theoretically, after 6 months of a well designed FM experience, a student should emerge with the following skills/knowledge
- splinting/other MSK
- suturing and removing sutures
- longitudinal following of an OB patient.
- Should know a lot about outpatient OB/GYN
- basic Peds
- an understanding of most diseases seen by IM (albeit from a chronic outpatient management not an acute worsening).
- some neuro
- see patients before they get an operation and after
- a lot of cardiology/EKG reading etc
- in addition to the normal primary care stuff.

This assumes a well designed clerkship and motivated student. If it's the usual work 3-4 days per week, all weekends off, and you just shadow a family doctor and do no real patient care, it'll be a total waste.
Click to expand...
By that logic though, why not 10 months of FM and 2 months of surgery? Wouldn't that cover everything?

Though at the time I felt like 3 months of surgery, 6 weeks of OB/GYN, 6 weeks peds, etc were all too long, they were invaluable for experiencing multiple aspects of those fields: inpatient, outpatient, subspecialty electives. Plus, many of those weeks involved 5-6 days a week of 12 hour days... very different than my family med experience of 9-5 (with a whole lunch hour!) for 4.5 days a week. I had a fantastic family medicine site (a busy, well-regarded FM residency program that did full OB), and I would feel seriously shortchanged if I was only doing that for half of my 3rd year.

Also: logistics. Unless this is a small school, how on earth will they find enough preceptors for an entire half of the class to be in quality sites at the same time?
 
DeucesHigh3 said:
By that logic though, why not 10 months of FM and 2 months of surgery? Wouldn't that cover everything?

Though at the time I felt like 3 months of surgery, 6 weeks of OB/GYN, 6 weeks peds, etc were all too long, they were invaluable for experiencing multiple aspects of those fields: inpatient, outpatient, subspecialty electives. Plus, many of those weeks involved 5-6 days a week of 12 hour days... very different than my family med experience of 9-5 (with a whole lunch hour!) for 4.5 days a week. I had a fantastic family medicine site (a busy, well-regarded FM residency program that did full OB), and I would feel seriously shortchanged if I was only doing that for half of my 3rd year.

Also: logistics. Unless this is a small school, how on earth will they find enough preceptors for an entire half of the class to be in quality sites at the same time?
Click to expand...

I never advocated for this setup, but I'm saying there could be a way to make it a good experience.

Also, in my comment, I tried to make it clear that you get a basic understanding of OB/GYN/peds/IM related diseases etc. I never implied it was a good replacement of any of these as a stand alone rotation.

As a surgeon, I wonder if I would be more well-rounded in general (esp outpatient) medicine type stuff if I had such an experience. Anecdotally- I know two general surgeons who did a year of FM before switching to general surgery. They felt like that year helped them be better private practice surgeons.
 
The approach of following patients that are hospitalized is interesting and could actually result in some good learning outside of what most might have as a traditional FM clerkship.

Just curious - how long are your other clerkships? If FM of all things is taking 6 months, that must mean your other rotations are quite short.
 
NickNaylor said:
Just curious - how long are your other clerkships? If FM of all things is taking 6 months, that must mean your other rotations are quite short.
Click to expand...

UCA2390 said:
Hello!
My school (US allopathic) is a bit unique in that our first rotation of 3rd year is a 6 month long family medicine rotation in a community practice. After that, we do 4 week rotations of Surgery, IM, Peds, Psych, OB, one elective.. EM in 4th year. This is something new they are doing, so I have no upper class to ask about this.
Click to expand...
 
NickNaylor said:
The approach of following patients that are hospitalized is interesting and could actually result in some good learning outside of what most might have as a traditional FM clerkship.

Just curious - how long are your other clerkships? If FM of all things is taking 6 months, that must mean your other rotations are quite short.
Click to expand...

All of the other rotations are 4 weeks* long. Surgery, IM, Peds, Psych, Ob/Gyn, EM
 
At first I was thinking this was the absolute craziest schedule I've ever heard of, but then I read the part about following these same patients if they are admitted or get surgery. Now my head is kind of blown by the concept, but not sure if its for good or worse. Seems like this could be a complete logistical nightmare and only could be pulled off if the admitting hospital didn't have a bunch of different specialty services and instead was mostly run by IM/FM hospitalists who consulted all the different specialties (Imagine trying to make it to 3 different specialties rounds at the right time if it were a typical academic hospital and you had pts spread on different services).

If the logistics worked out I think this could be incredibly educational, but I think it would be better to do the short specialty rotations first. Would be pretty cool to know the patients your rounding on.
 
Armadillos said:
At first I was thinking this was the absolute craziest schedule I've ever heard of, but then I read the part about following these same patients if they are admitted or get surgery. Now my head is kind of blown by the concept, but not sure if its for good or worse. Seems like this could be a complete logistical nightmare and only could be pulled off if the admitting hospital didn't have a bunch of different specialty services and instead was mostly run by IM/FM hospitalists who consulted all the different specialties (Imagine trying to make it to 3 different specialties rounds at the right time if it were a typical academic hospital and you had pts spread on different services).

If the logistics worked out I think this could be incredibly educational, but I think it would be better to do the short specialty rotations first. Would be pretty cool to know the patients your rounding on.
Click to expand...

Its untested, that is for-sure. They are small community hospitals. One of the sites where students will be is a 25 bed hospital, total. Not all are that small, but that one is the smallest. So the student will be at a practice in the community then be able to go to the hospital to see patients/follow up/ spend time on the EM service if they have an ED.

Thanks for all the feedback so far! Does anyone have any thoughts about how to go about studying to best use these 6 months? For example, most people have a much longer IM rotation, should I try to fit in some IM into my family medicine studying? etc.
 
UCA2390 said:
Its untested, that is for-sure. They are small community hospitals. One of the sites where students will be is a 25 bed hospital, total. Not all are that small, but that one is the smallest. So the student will be at a practice in the community then be able to go to the hospital to see patients/follow up/ spend time on the EM service if they have an ED.

Thanks for all the feedback so far! Does anyone have any thoughts about how to go about studying to best use these 6 months? For example, most people have a much longer IM rotation, should I try to fit in some IM into my family medicine studying? etc.
Click to expand...

If it were me I would basically study the FM/IM shelf review resources together for the whole FM rotation and then study the other specialty stuff as needed based on your patients.
 
UCA2390 said:
Its untested, that is for-sure. They are small community hospitals. One of the sites where students will be is a 25 bed hospital, total. Not all are that small, but that one is the smallest. So the student will be at a practice in the community then be able to go to the hospital to see patients/follow up/ spend time on the EM service if they have an ED.
Click to expand...

I think this is a bit terrifying simply because of the...lack of diversity of pathology that likely is in a 25 bed hospital, even over 6 months. All the cool stuff probably gets shipped out. Then again, I just graduated from a med school which is an uber referral hospital, so I'm biased as heck.
 
UCA2390 said:
Its untested, that is for-sure. They are small community hospitals. One of the sites where students will be is a 25 bed hospital, total. Not all are that small, but that one is the smallest. So the student will be at a practice in the community then be able to go to the hospital to see patients/follow up/ spend time on the EM service if they have an ED.

Thanks for all the feedback so far! Does anyone have any thoughts about how to go about studying to best use these 6 months? For example, most people have a much longer IM rotation, should I try to fit in some IM into my family medicine studying? etc.
Click to expand...

Sorry, I guess we got side-tracked by the curriculum and didn't actually try to answer your question. It's tricky, as I'm sure you've looked at the forums and seen that there's no real consensus about studying for the FM shelf because they can test you on just about anything. Don't worry about that test at the half-way point, it's like a Step 1 NBME self-assessment, which I would really hope they wouldn't count toward a grade.

If it was me, I would get through Case Files Family Medicine early in the rotation, and then read about any specific conditions/patients you see in Step Up to Medicine (or Epocrates, honestly... it's essentially the free version of UpToDate). In the last month or two of the rotation, work your way through the UWorld Step 2 questions, just the Internal Medicine ones. There are tons of them, and it'll cover most of your shelf exam; the peds and OB questions that you get will either be hammered into you a million times already (+/- be in Case Files), or they'll be so random you never could have studied for them.

As for the rest of your rotations being only a month? Good news: there are far fewer UWorld questions in the rest of the disciplines than there are for IM, so you can very comfortably get through them in the last week or so of your rotations (in addition to whatever review-book resources people are recommending these days).
 
redpanda said:
I think this is a bit terrifying simply because of the...lack of diversity of pathology that likely is in a 25 bed hospital, even over 6 months. All the cool stuff probably gets shipped out. Then again, I just graduated from a med school which is an uber referral hospital, so I'm biased as heck.
Click to expand...
I... sort of agree? But then again, diverse pathology wasn't really what showed up on the shelfs (shelves?) and Step 2, and what there was I learned from review Qs and books, not from actual patients.
 
This seems like a good way for all your students to get destroyed on the shelfs for lack of study time.
 
Wordead said:
This seems like a good way for all your students to get destroyed on the shelfs for lack of study time.
Click to expand...

Not going to sugar coat it, this has been a huge source of discussion among classmates. Our school is using shelfs for our grades obviously so its important! I guess something I don't know... say the first crop of students that got 4 weeks to study for IM shelves get slammed with bad grades, this is our schools problem right? Its not like residency programs get individual shelf exam scores, they just get the grade our school gave us on the entire rotation?
 
UCA2390 said:
Not going to sugar coat it, this has been a huge source of discussion among classmates. Our school is using shelfs for our grades obviously so its important! I guess something I don't know... say the first crop of students that got 4 weeks to study for IM shelves get slammed with bad grades, this is our schools problem right? Its not like residency programs get individual shelf exam scores, they just get the grade our school gave us on the entire rotation?
Click to expand...

Right, if you're still stratified against your classmates it doesn't matter for your grades. If you have a cutoff that you have to reach and it's high, well, yall are boned.

4 weeks to study for IM shelf....if I could put money down on whether they do poorly, I'd dump my life savings in there.

And no, resident programs dont get your shelf scores. But I'd question how prepared you all will be for subIs. Who knows, maybe it'll work.
 
Ah well that is unfortunate to hear!! Hopefully working through some of the IM problems/books during family can help offset the lack of time to prepare for it. Might need to hangout with the internists at the hospital too! Its a good point you make about sub-i. Well, guinea pigs we may be but did you know guinea pigs are the only animal that can synthesize their own vitamin C? thats something!
 
Winged Scapula said:
Does that meet state license requirements?
Click to expand...

Well good question, I am not familiar with those requirements. I had not questioned that they would not meet state licensure. I wouldn't think (hope!) our school would set us up for that type of problem/LCME wouldn't let that fly.
 
redpanda said:
I think this is a bit terrifying simply because of the...lack of diversity of pathology that likely is in a 25 bed hospital, even over 6 months. All the cool stuff probably gets shipped out. Then again, I just graduated from a med school which is an uber referral hospital, so I'm biased as heck.
Click to expand...

A lot of the "cool stuff"
- Isn't what a family doctor/internist/EM doc will see routinely (specialists will be prepared for the zebras in their fields).
- borders futility but we do it anyways at the major academic centers
- Isn't tested heavily on shelf exams or steps exams

Nonetheless, a 25 bed hospital may or may not have enough volume to give someone a good experience. Again, students will have to seek out educational opportunities. Hopefully with the shelf exam SIX MONTHS away, they won't "feel the need" to skip out on clinical experiences to have more study time.
 
DeucesHigh3 said:
Sorry, I guess we got side-tracked by the curriculum and didn't actually try to answer your question. It's tricky, as I'm sure you've looked at the forums and seen that there's no real consensus about studying for the FM shelf because they can test you on just about anything. Don't worry about that test at the half-way point, it's like a Step 1 NBME self-assessment, which I would really hope they wouldn't count toward a grade.

If it was me, I would get through Case Files Family Medicine early in the rotation, and then read about any specific conditions/patients you see in Step Up to Medicine (or Epocrates, honestly... it's essentially the free version of UpToDate). In the last month or two of the rotation, work your way through the UWorld Step 2 questions, just the Internal Medicine ones. There are tons of them, and it'll cover most of your shelf exam; the peds and OB questions that you get will either be hammered into you a million times already (+/- be in Case Files), or they'll be so random you never could have studied for them.

As for the rest of your rotations being only a month? Good news: there are far fewer UWorld questions in the rest of the disciplines than there are for IM, so you can very comfortably get through them in the last week or so of your rotations (in addition to whatever review-book resources people are recommending these days).
Click to expand...

Thank you so much for this advice! Im curious about the NBME Comprehensive Clinical Science Examination, it looks like we are required to pass with a 70% -- that will be 3 months after I take my step so hopefully thats ok. Yes I have heard that there are a lot of IM Uworld questions so maybe getting some of them done during family will offset the daunting amount during my 4 weeks of IM. I have also heard about signing up for the AAFP free question sets.
 
Another brilliant idea by some ***** administration who is either 1) not a physician, or 2) so far removed from medical school they might as well be making these decisions in a underground base on Mars.

Med school curriculum is like a shell game at this point. Keep changing things around pointlessly (T/PBL, capstone projects, crap like this) but ignore the fact that medical education is being gutted because the only thing that matters is making the insurance companies happy. That means minimal role for the med student in terms of notes, procedures, ownership, responsibility, and learning because anything the med student does slows down patient turnover and is useless for billing.

You and your classmates should revolt, OP. This is a dumb ****ing idea, and they're gambling with your professional education so they can have a presentation at some crappy AAMC conference.
 
UCA2390 said:
Hello!
My school (US allopathic) is a bit unique in that our first rotation of 3rd year is a 6 month long family medicine rotation in a community practice. After that, we do 4 week rotations of Surgery, IM, Peds, Psych, OB, one elective.. EM in 4th year. This is something new they are doing, so I have no upper class to ask about this.

For evaluation in 3rd year during our 6 month family medicine rotation, at week 12 we take the NBME Comprehensive Clinical Science Examination (I dont know what this is). Then at week 24 we take the NBME Subject Exam in Family Medicine.

If you had 6 months to prepare for these two things and learn family medicine (and knew that following family medicine you had 4 weeks of Surgery, then only 4 weeks of Internal Medicine) How would you tackle it?

I appreciate all views!
Click to expand...
Is the goal of your medical school to make students to do so badly on their shelfs in Surgery, IM, Peds, Psych, OB that students have no choice, but to go for primary care through Family Medicine? If so, it's a very ingenious way to box students in.

Seriously, you don't need a full 6 months to study for a Family Medicine shelf and it makes no sense to take the NBME Comprehensive Clinical Science Examination which is supposed to cover topics on Step 2 CK at Week 12, and then take the Family Medicine shelf at Week 24. They have it backwards.
 
UCA2390 said:
Hello!
My school (US allopathic) is a bit unique in that our first rotation of 3rd year is a 6 month long family medicine rotation in a community practice. After that, we do 4 week rotations of Surgery, IM, Peds, Psych, OB, one elective.. EM in 4th year. This is something new they are doing, so I have no upper class to ask about this.

For evaluation in 3rd year during our 6 month family medicine rotation, at week 12 we take the NBME Comprehensive Clinical Science Examination (I dont know what this is). Then at week 24 we take the NBME Subject Exam in Family Medicine.

If you had 6 months to prepare for these two things and learn family medicine (and knew that following family medicine you had 4 weeks of Surgery, then only 4 weeks of Internal Medicine) How would you tackle it?

I appreciate all views!
Click to expand...

Man I thought our clerkship schedule was bad. Sorry, OP. I would read lots about the other specialties during downtime.
 
VisionaryTics said:
Another brilliant idea by some ***** administration who is either 1) not a physician, or 2) so far removed from medical school they might as well be making these decisions in a underground base on Mars.

Med school curriculum is like a shell game at this point. Keep changing things around pointlessly (T/PBL, capstone projects, crap like this) but ignore the fact that medical education is being gutted because the only thing that matters is making the insurance companies happy. That means minimal role for the med student in terms of notes, procedures, ownership, responsibility, and learning because anything the med student does slows down patient turnover and is useless for billing.

You and your classmates should revolt, OP. This is a dumb ****ing idea, and they're gambling with your professional education so they can have a presentation at some crappy AAMC conference.
Click to expand...

****ing true they should just scrap third year imo. Can't even get people to let me do a lines or ivs cause they're so scared of legal repercussions. When am I supposed to learn? When I'm a busy as hell intern? No one looks at my notes cause they're too busy writing their own, full of crap that doesn't matter for patient care but matters for billing. I spend so much time sitting or standing around, doing basically jack, trying not to say anything too stupid or piss off the wrong person. The only value is exposure to patients and the occasional drops of knowledge from my team. Have to dig through charts, wiki, medscape and uptodate by myself to learn most of the time.
 
Honestly, intern year when was I really started to learn how to function in clinical medicine...medical school barely did anything to prepare. Which, makes sense in a way...
 
As someone who went to a school with no Family Medicine department/clerkship at all, this sounds crazy.

@KnuxNole I'd be willing to bet that even though PGY1 was when you felt like you were truly functioning in clinical medicine, you were building on a foundation started in 3rd year. There is a vast difference between a June MS2 and a June MS3 when it comes to thinking like a physician.
 
OP, tell me what school you attend so that I can tell all my premed friends who are gonna apply this year to avoid applying there...
 
22031 Alum said:
As someone who went to a school with no Family Medicine department/clerkship at all, this sounds crazy.

@KnuxNole I'd be willing to bet that even though PGY1 was when you felt like you were truly functioning in clinical medicine, you were building on a foundation started in 3rd year. There is a vast difference between a June MS2 and a June MS3 when it comes to thinking like a physician.
Click to expand...

That is true, in 3rd year, the foundation does start. Even though it feels disheartening that you don't really manage patients, write notes, or get involved, you do get learning with hearing about pearls from residents/attendings and shelves. Although, when intern year started, I didn't know how to dose tylenol, how much aspirin to give, what to do about hypoxia, what's the right antibiotic and amount for X infectious disease, which scared the **** out of me, but hands on experience helps with that too.
 
Psai said:
****ing true they should just scrap third year imo. Can't even get people to let me do a lines or ivs cause they're so scared of legal repercussions. When am I supposed to learn? When I'm a busy as hell intern? No one looks at my notes cause they're too busy writing their own, full of crap that doesn't matter for patient care but matters for billing. I spend so much time sitting or standing around, doing basically jack, trying not to say anything too stupid or piss off the wrong person. The only value is exposure to patients and the occasional drops of knowledge from my team. Have to dig through charts, wiki, medscape and uptodate by myself to learn most of the time.
Click to expand...
I find the first line interesting considering I was allowed to a pelvic and rectal exam as a first year on my family medicine clinical experience they make us do.
 
seminoma said:
But which ones also don't have FM clerkship?
Click to expand...
I know UCSD does not have a clerkship, at least, not in a traditional sense. They go to a FM clinic once a week during third year for four hours.
 
22031 Alum said:
I'm open about the fact that I went to Vanderbilt. I looked real dumb as a resident, when I asked my students (at a similar private school) "You guys have a Family clerkship??!!!"
Click to expand...

Med school with no FM clerkship would be glorious. Clearly it isn't a necessity if some schools simply don't have one.
 
KnuxNole said:
Honestly, intern year when was I really started to learn how to function in clinical medicine...medical school barely did anything to prepare. Which, makes sense in a way...
Click to expand...
Remember what you just said when we are all asked to show our value vs. the NP way of doing things, who can readily say they don't need to waste their time in residency, bc NP school teaches them to function in clinical medicine.
 
charmiedermie said:
Remember what you just said when we are all asked to show our value vs. the NP way of doing things, who can readily say they don't need to waste their time in residency, bc NP school teaches them to function in clinical medicine.
Click to expand...

true. Although I do think that quite a bit of medical school is a waste and that residency is the first time I felt like I really learned medicine, there is some importance to those four years in building a foundation!
 
Well! Lots of opinions which is great! Our school does claim to have a focus on pumping out primary care docs.... BUT IMO.. no better way to scare off a family medicine geared medical student than to stick them in a potentially bad 6 month FM experience, deterring them from doing the specialty. The ink has dried and we are doing the 6 months whether we like it or not. I do admit -- I really dont like the 4 week rotations in the other core specialties and lack of a required Neuro. But, we do have lots of time for electives and I plan to have neuro as one of them.

I can't believe that some schools have no FM rotation. But others can't believe what ours is doing. Luckily patients are part of a healthcare team with hopefully a diverse group of members watching out for their care. I'll be able to teach something to my fellow residents after my 6 month family practice experience, and another resident will have something to teach me that did surgery for 2 months.

Good news is that the ED in town and the hospital are part of the 6 month experience, not all my 6 months will be in the 4 walls of the family practice.

Any other ways to best utilize 6 months FM?
 
As someone not doing FM, I think a ton can be learned on FM and it was one of my favorite rotations. The variety of stuff you see is pretty incredible.

Organize w/ your preceptor so that you go see most of the sick visits and then present them real quick to preceptor between his physicals/easy follow ups/med refills and it was an awesome experience.
 
The strategy as it stands is to read Case Files Family Medicine, probably 2x. Do the AAFp questions, and the Uworld questions for family.

I'll also start reading into topics in the Step-Up-To Medicine text, BRS Peds, and an Ob/Gyn book. Since our rotations are only 4 weeks for internal med, peds and OB/Gyn & surgery I think that I should use these 6 months to at least get some of that reading and Qbank work done. Plus it applies to patients we see in clinic anyhow. No way I can read Step-Up and do all those Qbanks in 4 weeks. Gotta start now.

Thoughts?
 
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