Overview

The Section of General Internal Medicine is involved in teaching, research, and patient care. At the graduate level, the Section supervises the inpatient and outpatient activities of the four longitudinal care teams (LCTs). Members of the Section act as primary attendings on the inpatient general medical services at the University of Illinois Medical Center and Jesse Brown VA Medical Center - West Side. They also act as on-site teaching attendings for the General Medicine clinic, which has about 14,000 visits per year. Residents on medical consultative service for surgical and other non-medical services are supervised by Section attendings as well.

The Section provides a primary care perspective that seeks to deliver continuous, comprehensive care with a patient-centered focus. The psychosocial aspects of health care are integrated with the biological component to provide care that treats the whole patient in his or her life context, including the ethical aspects of medical care.

The research interests of the Section focus on health care services research in a variety of ways. Ongoing studies involve decision analysis in prenatal diagnostic testing, methods for improving patient-physician communications, bioethical aspects of clinical practice in the managed care environment, methods for enhancing access and care for the hearing impaired, enhancement of self-care in diabetic patients, methods for increasing smoking cessation, and primary care curriculum development.