| Tacoma Family Medicine |
Clerkships
Overview
Tacoma Family Medicine offers both clerkships and sub-internships on a first-come, first-served basis to students in good academic standing whose career goals are consistent with our mission to train physicians for service in underserved areas.
We strive to ensure students receive a realistic, hands-on family practice experience. We offer two types of learning experiences of four weeks duration.
Process
All students are provided a pager and a cafeteria stipend for meals when on duty in hospital.Dates for a clerkship are individually negotiated but generally take place during our interview season—November to February. Clerkships are arranged by contacting Tom Egnew at (253) 403-2929.
Arranging a rotation involves a phone interview to determine if the residency experience is an appropriate match between our mission to train residents for underserved medical practice and the students’ vocational interests and scheduling needs. Applicants are then reviewed by the faculty and the student is notified of the final decision.
Once a clerkship has been approved, you will receive information for completing the necessary administrative requirements with Multicare’s GME Program Coordinator.
We offer the following educational choices:
Third Year Family Medicine Clerkship
A clerkship in ambulatory medicine at our model family practice center. Teaching is provided by faculty and senior residents. Clerkship students can elect to spend a week on the family medicine inpatient service as a part of the ward team at Tacoma General hospital which is a half block from TFM and serves as the primary in-patient facility for TFM patients. Students electing to do hospital work will be expected to be on call two times during the inpatient week.
Third Year Pediatric Clerkship
The University of Washington School of Medicine uses Mary Bridge Children’s Hospital as a training site for its third year student clinical rotation in pediatrics. This is a six-week clerkship with four weeks devoted to inpatient Pediatrics and the other two weeks divided between the Pediatric Emergency Department and Outpatient experiences. The medical students are part of a team of up to three students, two TFM residents, and full-time Pediatric hospitalists. There is direct interaction with the TFM residents on the team but limited interaction with the TFM clinic and the other TFM residents. Students take responsibility for inpatients and are an integral part of the team.
Fourth Year Family Medicine Sub-Internship
A hospital-based Sub-Internship where students work two-weeks with a senior resident or Fellow on the obstetrics service. Students also spend two-weeks working with a senior resident and intern on the family medicine service. Call for the sub-internship experiences is Q4.