During this elective, residents will participate in the provision of primary healthcare to patients between 10 and 26 years of age. Common complaints include STI's, contraception, sports injuries, acne, and IVDU, at sites as diverse as a homeless shelter for youth, school-based clinics, La Clínica Tepeyác, High Street, and the 16th Street Mall.
The AUCC is located at Denver Health and offers residents a wide variety of cases in medicine, surgery, gynecology, orthopedics and others. Resident autonomy and independent decision-making are stressed. Residents will see a broad spectrum of acute and sub acute conditions that will present to offices and urgent care centers requiring entirely different management skills than you have acquired on the wards or in continuity clinics.
This course focuses on the development of advocacy and leadership skills to better serve the needs of the underserved and vulnerable populations. This elective is designed to provide participants with a basic understanding of our current healthcare system and training on specific strategies that can be used to advocate on behalf of patients—through legislation, written pieces, media, coalitions, and community organizing.
Residents can elect to take a 3-4 month block of rotations at the Denver Veteran’s Affairs Hospital in their 3rd year. Several different clinics are available to rotate through on a regular basis including, but not limited to, urology, rheumatology, dermatology, ENT, ortho, pulmonary, renal, and more.
This elective is designed to help residents develop a broad understanding of complementary and alternative therapies their patients may be pursuing. Residents work with University, Kaiser and community providers who specialize in various alternative healing disciplines, including acupuncture, naturopathy, yoga therapy, hypnosis, and shamanism.
Clinical Nutrition: Residents have the option to spend two weeks of the elective on clinical nutrition. Experiences may include endocrine, eating disorders, and the Women and Children’s clinics as well as inpatient nutrition rounds.
This one month of out-patient dermatology clinic in a multi-specialty group setting is one of our most popular! Residents achieve independence with basic dermatology diagnosis, treatment and biopsy procedures. Open to primary care residents only.
This elective focuses on cardiac stress testing: picking the right stress test, testing protocol, reasons for testing, interpretation of data and safety considerations. At the end of the course, you should be able to conduct exercise testing independently and we will certify you as ready to do this if you have proctored at least 50 stress tests and taken the pre and post tests. Many physicians who have completed this rotation are now performing treadmills in their practice settings!
During this unique rotation, residents will learn pedigree construction and interpretation, become familiar with available genetic tests, develop genetic counseling skills, and become familiar with the ethics and legal implications of genetic testing. Several clinic sites will be used to capture an array of diseases and styles of practice, and there are curricular offerings throughout the month to enhance learning built into the schedule. The main thrust of the month is to help Internal Medicine residents develop the skillset to understand and how medical genetics relates to Internal Medicine and to prepare for the continued evolution of clinical genomic medicine as applied to adults.
During this elective, residents will learn chronic care of HIV-infected individuals with a focus on the primary care of this population. Residents will gain the knowledge and skills to provide guideline-based preventive care specific to HIV patients, initiate anti-retrovirals, manage complications of treatment including viral resistance, and manage chronic co-morbidities. This is a required rotation for PC residents who wish to enter the HIV program, but is open to all interested residents.
Residents can take advantage of wonderful opportunities in Arizona and New Mexico with the Indian Health Service. Several CU graduates serve as preceptors. Residents will practice the full spectrum of internal medicine including outpatient clinics and inpatient rounding in this unique practice setting. During this rotation, residents live on the reservation affording them an opportunity to become fully immersed in the unique culture and community found on the reservations.
Kaiser Permanente is a non-profit integrated health system (primarily HMO with some PPO and high-deductible plans) caring for more than 450,000 members in 17 clinics throughout Denver and Boulder. Primary care internists host residents at their clinic site where the resident will work with 2-3 internists seeing patients, performing clinic-based procedures, attending CMEs and business-related meetings of interest.
This popular rotation has been rated as one of the most valuable outpatient experiences offered at CU. Practical experience with a personable, superb clinician-educator. Residents will master joint exam skills and injection techniques. Available to primary care residents only.
This month is designed to provide the resident with exposure to hospice and palliative care through a variety of inpatient hospice, home hospice, and community-based palliative care experiences. The resident will primarily work at Hospice of St John (HSJ), taking the responsibility for patients receiving intensive hospice care for acute symptom management. Residents will strengthen knowledge and skills in pain and symptom management and end-of-life communication through participation in one-on-one educational sessions with palliative care physicians throughout the month.
An excellent opportunity to participate actively in a busy 3 internist community-based practice with a variety of managed care plans (HMOs, PPOs, POS, and indemnity insurance). Learn to code, refer, pre-authorize, use superbills and understand the myriad variations of insurance reimbursement. Residents will also be exposed to overhead and traditional office expenses. Opportunities to attend peer review, medical staff leadership and quality management meetings. A terrific opportunity to get accustomed to practicing in the real world.
We will make every attempt to accommodate educational requests and individualized learning objective during this elective. Clinic experiences can include: intake evaluations, common psychiatric diagnoses such as anxiety and mood disorders, addiction and substance abuse clinics, women’s health clinics, eating disorders clinics, geriatric clinics, and motivational interviewing. Internal medicine residents will get experience in diagnostic formulation, assessing for suicidality and violence, pharmacotherapy, and some basic principles of psychotherapy.
The objective of participating in primary care research is to allow residents exposure to the process of conducting research while allowing them to explore issues that are relevant to them. As a secondary objective, we encourage presentation of research results at a national meeting as well as publication in a peer-reviewed journal. See PC Research
Residents may choose from a large number of rural clinical sites that incorporate both inpatient and outpatient medicine. Most of these sites qualify for loan repayment and are looking for new internists to join their group. Through grant funding, we are able to provide residents with lodging, travel expenses and a daily stipend.
Residents learn about the health care system, participate in quality improvement projects and meet many of the people around town who make policy decisions. It will change the way you read the newspaper, watch the news, and interact with patients and multidisciplinary health care teams. This elective is well-suited for those who like topics such as understanding healthcare systems, what’s Medicare/Medicaid, who pays, how do you define “quality”, what is a quality improvement plan? The month is largely non-clinical in nature.
Available at Stout Street Clinic providing care to the homeless population in Denver, Denver Health and Hospitals Clinics and many others. Having the opportunity to spend a month at a single site will allow residents to experience the rewards of providing primary care to underserved populations.
This elective provides residents exposure to several diverse outpatient clinical experiences including gestational diabetes, metabolic bone disease, breast and thyroid clinics, high risk OB, and pelvic pain clinics. Each schedule is crafted according to individual interest. All residents will gain exposure in the diagnosis and treatment of sexually transmitted infections, performance of well-woman examinations, contraception, treatment and management of abnormal pap smears, workup of abnormal and dysfunctional uterine bleeding, diagnosis and work-up of incontinence, including urodynamics, and hormone therapy counseling.