A four-week Department orientation follows. This module is designed to introduce you to your peers and to the faculty and staff at the family medicine centers. This is an opportunity to acquaint you with the operation of the family medicine center and to assist you in beginning your office practice. You will learn how to use the preceptors, manage your schedule of patients, use the reference materials, and generally develop a familiarity with your ambulatory practice. You will have a supervised on-call experience in a buddy system with an upper-level resident. We will also introduce the faculty in a special core content lecture series covering common problems and emergencies that arise in practice. The Department's picnic, the Buffalo Bisons baseball game and several other social functions will help you begin to feel at home.

At the conclusion of this module you will have a sense of your identity as a family physician, as well as an introduction to a comprehensive approach to the care of individuals and families.
The Family Medicine Center

The family medicine center is the core educational experience in the residency program. Here you will learn to provide comprehensive and continuous care for a panel of patients. Your patients will recognize you as their family physician, and you will have a seasoned and experienced faculty as front-line advisors while you learn to mix the science and art of medicine. You will have the opportunity to diagnose, treat, and educate patients over a period of time in order to learn how to make your doctoring most effective and efficient. The family health centers are dynamic and exciting practices with different community orientations and patient based problems. You will see patients and families of all ages, assisting them with disease prevention and health promotion as well as treatment for specific medical conditions. The doctor-patient relationship is a theme that is explored in detail in the behavioral science seminar series and in this office-based experience. You will learn ambulatory procedural skills, such as flexible sigmoidoscopy and minor surgery. You will also learn how to manage the patient within the context of the health-care team: visiting nurses, home health aides, clinical psychologists, social workers, nurse practitioners, other consultants, and medical students. Your office practice will be the point of entry into the health-care system for patients, and you will have the chance to see them in follow-up after hospitalization. Your panel of families will grow as you move through the residency; by graduation, your practice skills will be honed and you will be ready for your next challenge.