Family Medicine Clerkship
General Information
Sea Mar Community Health Center is a non-profit organization which has coordinated health care and a variety of other services for Hispanics and other indigent patients in the King County area since 1978. Sea Mar has five major outpatient facilities; Seattle , Mt. Vernon , Smokey Point, Bellingham , and Tacoma . The clinic in Seattle is part of a multi-services agency with services ranging from dental care and a Well Infant and Child (WIC) program to Home Health and Chore services and a Nursing Home Facility.
The Seattle facility has 33 fully equipped exam rooms, 2 procedure rooms and a minor surgery room. The medical staff includes 8 family practitioners, 1 pediatrician and 2 OB/GYN, 1 nurse practitioner, and provides over 75,000 patient encounters per year. Most of the patients are low income and almost 50% are ethnic minorities including Hispanic, Southeast Asian and other medically underserved minority groups.
The services provided at Sea Mar include comprehensive family medical care, ranging from obstetrical services through pediatrics, adult medicine and geriatrics. In-patient medical care is provided at Providence Medical Center .
Proficiency in Spanish language is required for students selecting this site, as there are no ancillary staff available to translate for students. A Cambodian translator is available at the clinic.
Faculty
Dr. Julio Jimenez is the clerkship coordinator, primary preceptor and is one of the eight family physicians employed by Sea Mar. All of these physicians have experience in clinical teaching and will be preceptors. In addition there are two third year Family Practice residents who will also serve as preceptors.
Unit Orientation and Administration
Read all the clerkship material prior to the rotation. Please review the Clinical Skills Inventory with your site coordinator during your orientation.
Before you begin the rotation call Dr. Julio Jimenez at the clinic, 762-3730, ext. 2002 to arrange our time of arrival and orientation to the clinic. Be sure to send the completed Student Summary Sheet to the site coordinator at least two weeks before the starting date of your rotation.
Clinical Work
In the Office
During clinic hours you will see patients and discuss them with the preceptor. Efforts will be made to give you exposure to a wide variety of clinical problems and to follow several patients longitudinally for the duration of the rotation. All patients seen will require a written progress note in the chart reviewed and signed by the preceptor on the day of the encounter.
On-Call / ER/Hospital
You will take call one night per week and two weekends during the rotation. During this time, you will make hospital rounds at Providence Hospital as well as assist in the care of obstetric patients who deliver at Providence Hospital .
Outreach
Depending on your own interests, contact hours with appropriate outreach staff will be scheduled. This experience can be tailored to your own interests and needs. Outreach opportunities might include: * Antenatal/prenatal/pediatric nutrition training with the certified WIC nutritionist
Home visits to home bound patients under the direction of a physician or the Sea Mar Home Health Care team
Home visits with a Home Health Nurse to learn more about the special cross-cultural health needs of Southeast Asian and Hispanic populations
Seeing patients at one or more of Sea Mar's migrant health centers, which serve primarily Hispanic Migrant workers. Clinics are located in Smokey Point, Mt. Vernon , and Bellingham .
Community Service/Research
Sea Mar provides many unique opportunities for you to complete a significant research and/or community service project during this rotation. One half day a week will be allocated to this project, but more time could be arranged under special circumstances. Possible projects include:
- Developing much needed cross-cultural educational materials dealing with a certain medical problem or psychosocial issue in Spanish or a Southeast Asian language, with the assistance of medical translators
- Performing a needs assessment of a particular ethnic or socioeconomic group living in the area served by Sea Mar
- Analyzing data collected by the prenatal program such as risk factors for pregnancy complications
- Assisting the Quality Assurance Committee with an assessment of a certain quality of care issue in the clinic
- Helping prepare a treatment protocol for a certain clinical problem, such as hypertension.
You will be expected to present a 10-15 minute report on your project to the staff at the end of the rotation.
Teaching and Didactics
The didactic component of the rotation consists of four one hour sessions at the main residency site, Providence Family Practice Clinic, these include the topics of pediatrics, obstetrics, general medicine and behavioral sciences. Also you will attend the weekly Sea Mar OB staff/didactic meeting at Sea Mar. In addition there are several morning hospital meetings at Providence and Swedish Hospital that the students are encouraged to attend with the preceptors.