Ambulatory Education

Residents learn to manage common ambulatory problems under the supervision and guidance of faculty preceptors. After residents have matched into the Traditional Medicine Program, they will have the opportunity to rank their preference for a primary continuity clinic at one of the following sites.

1. Yale Primary Care Center: The majority of residents will care for patients in the Yale New Haven Hospital-based Primary Care Center Clinic (PCC). This is the site where many of the local population of New Haven receive their primary care. Residents assigned to this location will have an equal balance of men and women patients with a variety of medical conditions. Residents here will have exposure to a highly ethnically diverse patient population, including refugees. In addition, residents will witness first hand the impact of social and economic stressors on medical issues in this predominantly indigent patient population.
2. Yale Refugee Clinic: All residents rotate through the Yale Refugee Clinic as part of their ambulatory experience. The Yale Refugee Clinic, located within the PCC, is a resident-run clinic that provides medical care to newly arrived refugees from various countries including Afghanistan, Congo, Cuba, Eritrea, and Iran. We work in collaboration with Integrated Refugee and Immigrant Services (IRIS), a non-profit organization based in New Haven that resettles over 200 refugees every year. The refugee population offers a unique global health experience for residents which focuses on psychological trauma, tropical infectious diseases, and routine preventative care. All Yale internal medicine residents are encouraged to volunteer.
3. The VA Connecticut Healthcare System (VACHS) Primary Care Firm System: A significant number of residents also care for patients in the VA Connecticut Healthcare System’s primary care clinics at the West Haven campus. In addition to the typical medical conditions seen in primary care, the VA clinics provide exposure to a population of patients with unique health issues related to their service in the military. To supplement the primarily male patient panel that residents care for at this site, residents also spend afternoons in the Women’s Clinic at the VA hospital, which cares for women veterans and a select number of male veterans’ spouses.
4. The VA Connecticut Healthcare System (VACHS) Center of Excellence (COE) in Primary Care Education : A handful of residents will participate in this team-based, patient-centered care teaching model. The COE is unique in that it involves dedicated clinical care months (in place of elective time) that include learning, implementing, and practicing inter-professional collaboration, health policy, leadership, and quality improvement, which are necessary skills to function in today’s health care system. The patient population served is identical to that in the VA Primary Care Firm System.
5. Fair Haven Community Health Center : The Fair Haven Community Health Center is a federally qualified health center serving a low-income population of New Haven located a 10-minute drive or bike ride from the main Yale campus. It is a patient-centered medical home with integrated medical, behavioral health, addiction and dental services that delivers team-based care to a predominantly Spanish-speaking, economically disadvantaged population. Our Spanish-speaking residents who want to serve the under-served, are interested in social medicine or healthcare reform, or just want to work with a great group of interdisciplinary colleagues may work at Fair Haven as their primary continuity clinic.
6. Yale Health : A few residents will care for patients at Yale Health, a not-for-profit, state-of-art multidisciplinary health maintenance facility built in 2010 and located in New Haven that provides health services to Yale students, staff faculty and their families. There are approximately 37,000 members who come from every state in the country and almost every country in the world.

** Please see the Yale Office-Based Medicine Curriculum site for more details about the Ambulatory Resident Education.