The Department of Family Medicine Clerkship is an eight-week rotation for WVU Third Year Medical Students.  This includes four weeks of instruction at WVU and four weeks of rural ambulatory care with a WV Board Certified Family Medicine Physician having WVU Faculty Appointment.  The West Virginia Rural Health Education Partnership Program (WVRHEP) oversees participating physicians in rural WV communities.

During the time at the approved WVRHEP physician’s location, rural ambulatory care, students will perform a community service project and attend IDS/MDS sessions.  The WVRHEP coordinators for each area will plan the community service project and the Inter-Disciplinary Medicine Sessions (IDS).

Family Medicine faculty is assigned to designated students to assist with their educational training and development.  The faculty advisor will meet with their student twice during the four weeks while in Morgantown.  A discussion of the clerkship expectations will be reviewed at those sessions as well as the student’s performance while on the rotation.

Each student will select a Family Medicine related topic to present to their classmates and advisors sharing update treatments and medical findings.  This fifteen-minute power point presentation will be scheduled when in Morgantown on a Tuesday or Thursday during the noon hour.

Students will see patients in our clinic, complete seven days on the inpatient service at Ruby Memorial Hospital and see patients at the Monongalia County Health Department.  Students are assigned four nights of call with our residents during the four weeks.  Weekends and holidays are not excluded from call.

There are two online exams for this clerkship, a mid and final exam.  The mid exam is at the end of the first four weeks of the rotation and the final on the last Friday of the eighth week.  Questions are derived from “The Essentials of Family Medicine, Fifth Edition, and “Dubins EKG,” Sixth Edition.  Both exams are taken online through SOLE.

Updated May 2009