Julie Patricia Phillips, Chairperson
The Department of Family Medicine provides medical students in the College of Human Medicine (CHM) with classroom, virtual and clinical education reflecting the depth and scope of family medicine. Our goal is to provide students with a foundation for their future practice, one that incorporates the patient-centered, value-based, and population health-centered values and skills of family medicine, regardless of their future career choice. To accomplish this goal the department is staffed by experienced family physicians and other health, health systems, and environmental health professionals with interest and experience in many different aspects of medical practice and education. Interests and activities of the department faculty cover the spectrum of family medicine. The department includes Divisions of Geriatrics and Palliative Medicine.
The department participates in most of the college’s interdisciplinary programs, directs a required clinical clerkship in family medicine, and offers a variety of electives including Sports Medicine, Geriatrics, Hospice and Palliative Medicine. The department provides leadership for many areas in the CHM curriculum including rural medicine, chronic pain, and virtual medicine.
Students in department clerkships attend active family medicine practices that are dedicated to medical education. The practices are located at clinical sites in and around CHM campuses.
The department is active in multiple family medicine residencies at community hospitals across the state. The Integrated Program (TIP) provides senior medical students an opportunity to work intensively with a College of Human Medicine affiliated family medicine residency program. Competitive scholarships are available to support TIP students.
Departmental faculty are engaged in extramurally supported research focusing on primary care, prevention, self- care, geriatrics, complex medical disorders, cannabis and chronic diseases, substance and use disorders, including opioids, and long-term care. In addition, the faculty is engaged in population health and environmental health research as well as health systems research, rural and primary care workforce research, provider well-being, and telehealth. Support for research includes grants from the National Institutes of Health (NIH), Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA), Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), major foundations, and insurance carriers.