INNOVATIONS IN FAMILY MEDICINE TRAINING

Tufts University Family Medicine Residency at CHA Named "Innovative Program."

The Tufts University Family Medicine Residency at Cambridge Health Alliance (CHA) is one of 14 residency programs chosen via a national competition to participate in a program to transform Family Medicine and create new models of residency training.

In 2004, the Future of Family Medicine Report called for innovations in family medicine practice to become a "medical home." Preparing the Personal Physician for Practice (P4) is an extension of this national demonstration project that has challenged a few select programs to conceive new training models.

AFMRD past President Samuel Jones, MD, challenged "We want everyone in the discipline to be thinking 'If I could start over, what would my training look like within my institution and my community?'" At Tufts University Family Medicine Residency at CHA we are doing just that. Our curriculum is a moving, living organism. Our residents and faculty have been working diligently to develop educational objectives that will prepare residents to meet the new challenges facing family physicians. We are creating an on-line portfolio that residents use to guide their own learning and teaches them to be life-long learners.

TUFMR joined forces with Cambridge Health Alliance in 2006, and moved into a new state of the art Family Medicine Center in June, 2007. This facility was designed with Future of Family Medicine goals in mind. There are spaces for group visits, in-house labs and radiology, computer work stations for each resident, and a state of the art electronic medical record system.