The UIC Family Medicine Clerkship was established in 1992 as a 4-week required third year clerkship and then was expanded to the current 6 weeks in 1998. The clerkship was awarded the first ever “Outstanding Clerkship Award” at the University of Illinois College of Medicine in 1998. The Clerkship is also funded with a competitive grant award from the Health Resources and Services Administration to develop ways to graduate Culturally Competent Physicians.

This clerkship emphasizes training in ambulatory sites and has made an effort to place students in private practitioners’ offices, community health centers, and in quality residency programs. We have locations throughout the State of Illinois, but they are predominately located in the metropolitan Chicago area.

The goals of the clerkship are to increase students’ ability to:

• Provide comprehensive patient care with a family medicine perspective (which includes exploring family and cultural factors which may impact their patients).
• Diagnose and manage common acute and chronic ambulatory illnesses in a well reasoned manner, and
• Recognize and address personal knowledge, skill, and/or reasoning gaps that may arise during their patient encounters.

The academic component of the clerkship is composed of various required portions. Currently, the students have a personal schedule reflecting courses they choose, called selectives. Other required courses are also offered in conjunction with the selectives. These courses emphasize common problems in clinical settings that challenge and provide the students with the ability to reason through these common, yet unique clinical cases. The selectives provide students to study areas of Family Medicine that they are especially interested in. The bulk of the training is provided by highly motivated, dedicated and volunteer family physicians who precept students during their clinical experience.