Outpatient Teaching Service

Ambulatory Rotations That Enrich Your Residency Training

The outpatient teaching service for categorical residents includes ambulatory care rotations and the continuity clinic experience during each year of residency. These take place during ambulatory “Y” weeks in the resident schedule, occurring every fifth week (10 weeks per year during residency).  

In addition, the internal medicine residency offers a Primary Care Training Pathway for categorical residents interested in pursuing primary care or other primarily ambulatory-based subspecialty fellowships.

10 Weeks of Ambulatory Training a Year

The ambulatory “Y” weeks offer dedicated ambulatory training with continuity clinic sessions, formal didactics and ambulatory specialty medicine experiences.   

The Ambulatory “Y” weeks include: 

• Continuity clinic sessions five times a week. 
• Administrative session once a week. 
• Ambulatory specialty experiences three mornings a week. 
  • PGY-1: Endocrinology, geriatrics house calls, gynecology, physiatry, rheumatology, and quality and safety 
  • PGY-2: Geriatrics, hematology/oncology and hospice/palliative care 
  • PGY-3: Cardiology, gastroenterology, pulmonology, nephrology, neurology 
• Friday morning ambulatory conference: These take place every Friday (subject to change based on availability). They feature the primary care curriculum, with topics including: 
  • Behavior change/motivational interviewing: Tobacco, substance abuse, alcohol, obesity
  • Care of special populations: LGBT adults, homeless, transgender adults, immigrants 
  • Community medicine 
  • Cross-cultural care
  • End-of-life care/palliative care 
  • Genetic counseling 
  • Health care policy
  • Intimate partner violence 
  • Medication adherence
  • Sexual health
• Quality and Safety Curriculum: Features nine topics facilitated by the chair of the department of quality and safety at Mount Auburn Hospital. 
• Ambulatory report led by faculty experts in general medicine, infectious diseases, neurology and psychiatry 
• Communication and interviewing skills curriculum providing focused feedback on interviewing skills utilizing online modules and videotaped interviewing 
• Art and Medicine Series: Field trips to local museums facilitated by hired museum educators to use art as a medium to teach empathy  

The following table outlines the general schedule for a typical Ambulatory Y week.