Our curriculum
Our curriculum is created to optimize clinical experiences to build a family physician’s skill set across 3 years. Our residents work with our own faculty and with a diverse and well-respected group of physician preceptors in our community
We have, as of July 2025, started a “modified Clinic First model” for resident education. This is our innovative approach to improve resident continuity with their patients, improve resident confidence, efficiency, and comfort in the continuity clinic setting, and to maximize educational experiences on rotations with minimal interruptions.
Modified Clinic First:
• Each year is set up in 13 4-week blocks, each of which is divided into 2 weeks of outpatient focused resident continuity clinic care (“clinic weeks”) and 2 weeks focused on rotation-specific experiences (“rotation weeks”).
• During clinic weeks, residents spend approximately 6 half days in clinic seeing their own patients and have no outside rotation duties. Their other 4 half days each week are devoted to:
• Longitudinal clinical experiences such as nursing home rounds, home visits, women’s health/prenatal outreach clinic, student health at Southern Illinois University-Edwardsville, and others
• Community outreach and engagement opportunities
• Longitudinal individual and small group learning activities, such as research/scholarly work, quality improvement (QI) activities, board preparation, and clinical and nonclinical learning sessions in subjects such as health promotion & disease prevention, human behavior & mental health, legal & ethical issues, patient education, pharmacology, practice management, professionalism, and leadership
• During rotation weeks, residents are entirely immersed in their rotations, only leaving rotation duties for weekly didactics and for an occasional (once a week or less) short clinic to maintain compliance with ABFM board eligibility standards.
Electives
Two elective blocks in PGY2; 4 elective blocks in PGY3. Residents desiring a subspecialty track will be encouraged to complete specific electives. Electives include but are not limited to:
Anesthesia, Behavioral Health, Cardiology, Endocrinology, Family Medicine, Gastroenterology, Geriatrics, Hematology/Oncology, Infectious Disease, OB/Women's Health, Substance Use Management, Patient Education, Plastic Surgery, POCUS, Podiatry, Pulmonology, Research, Sleep Medicine, Sports Medicine, Individually Designed Elective, Wound Care.
The program director reserves the right to restrict elective and sub-specialty rotations.
Resident rotations
PGY1
• Family Medicine Inpatient Service (6 blocks/12 weeks)
• Obstetrics (1 block)
• Gynecology (1 block)
• Inpatient Pediatrics (1 block)*
• Outpatient Pediatrics (1 block)
• ENT/Surgery/Podiatry/Plastics (1 block)
• Sports Medicine/Orthopedics (1 block)
• Cardiology (1 block)
PGY2
• Family Medicine Inpatient Service (4 blocks/8 weeks)
• Night Float (2 blocks)
• Electives (2 blocks)
• Rural Family Medicine (1 block)
• Obstetrics (1 block)
• Pulmonology/Infectious Disease (1 block)
• ICU (1 block)
• Pediatric Emergency Medicine/Newborn Nursery (1 block)*
PGY3
• Family Medicine Inpatient Service (4 blocks)
• Night Float (2 blocks)
• Electives (4 blocks)
• Outpatient Pediatrics (1 block)
• Psychiatry/Behavioral Health/Dermatology (1 block)
• Geriatrics/Palliative Care (1 block)
* These rotations are completed at St. Louis Children’s Hospital