Family Health Centers

There are two family health centers in our program. Phillips-Barber Family Health Center, located in Lambertville, was begun in 1970 and has six full-time family physicians, a behavioral scientist and four residents from each year. Delaware Valley Family Health Center, located in Milford, began in 1974 and has six full-time family physicians, one behavioral scientist and two residents from each year. Each family health center is an integral part of the community in which it is located. The populations served by the family health centers are demographically similar; the teaching activities and the curriculum are the same at both sites. The education subcommittee of faculty oversees the teaching at both family health centers to assure that the experience of the residents is comprehensive and complete. Assignment of residents is based on their expressed wishes whenever possible and residents are assigned to the family health center for their full three years.

Ambulatory Care. Since ambulatory care assumes the bulk of the family physician's activities, an essential part of the training takes place in the family health centers during all three years. Residents gain an appreciation of family systems dynamics and continuity of care by developing a panel of families and following them through the residency.

Residents learn to identify health problems of the individual, the family and the community and become able to plan, institute and follow through with the program to solve these problems. Since the target population includes all economic levels, and since the resident's responsibility for the community is genuine, there is a real opportunity to gain experience in the management of health problems and to develop concepts of improved health care delivery.

During the third year, residents spend at least half of their time in the family health center and assume a major responsibility for the care of patients. The residents see patients in all settings and function as partners with the full-time family physician faculty. The call experience in the third year is exclusively for the family health centers. Residents are on call with family practice faculty one night per week and every fourth weekend.

Curriculum. A comprehensive practice management curriculum spans the full three years and culminates in a UMDNJ-Robert Wood Johnson Medical School network seminar on practice management in the third year. Residents deliver obstetrical care to a number of assigned families by following the family throughout the entire pregnancy, delivering the child and then providing well care and helping the family adjust to the new situation. As well as working in the office and the hospital, residents work in high schools, elementary schools and nursing homes. Residents can also become involved with prenatal classes, local rescue squads and community health councils.