Time: 3-4 hour clinic sessions, at least 7 sessions per academic year
Audience: Fourth-year medical students in a primary care continuity clinic experience through Harborview Medical Center’s Adult Medicine Clinic
Teaching Method: Clinical Precepting
Description: Fourth-year medical students have their own small panel of primary care patients seen in the Adult Medicine Clinic. I served as a clinical preceptor for these students both with direct observation of patient interactions, demonstration of physical exam skills and fostering clinical reasoning skills by helping them to develop management plans. I was also responsible for leading a pre-clinic conference on COPD for the students (you can view the handout below). This was an overview of COPD as a syndrome with an emphasis on primary care management in preventative medicine.
Reflections: This experience was rich with opportunity to provide “in the moment” feedback, demonstrate clinical exam findings, modeling patient interactions particularly with sensitive topics (such as newly diagnosed HIV and safe sexual practices) and practice “on the fly” teaching as questions in climic arose. My teaching was directly observed by attending providers and enabled me to receive directed feedback on my own teaching skills, pushing me to be a better educator in the clinic setting.