Training in Primary Care Medicine & Dentistry

Abstract: Maldistribution of primary care physicians continues to contribute to lack of access of rural communities to adequate medical care serves. The Primary Care Internal Medicine residency training at the University of Kentucky Medical Center has a long-standing record of successfully training primary care internists and many graduates locate their practices in rural, underserved communities. This success has been largely due to targeted recruitment of residents to the program who have a high likelihood of meeting the program's goals and integrating communitybased training sites in rural communities into the curriculum. While successful in many areas, evaluation of this program reveals the need to add new interventions to improve training in the six key areas of interest: care of the elderly; HIV/AIDS; substance abuse/chronic pain; domestic violence; patient safety, medical errors and quality improvement; health literacy and cultural competency. The UK Medical Center and our VA affiliate serve a large population 9f patients /TomEastern, Southern and Southeastern Kentucky, many who live in remote Appalachian communities with little access to medical care due to lack of providers and financial barriers of the populace. Furthermore, Kentucky has a high rate of health problems related to life-style, environmental and social problems highly prevalent in Appalachian communities. The faculty in the Division of General Internal Medicine at the University of Kentucky have a strong record of success in developing innovative training interventions and evaluation in educational research, especially in program and residency performance evaluation, curriculum development and evaluation and presenting outcomes at educational conferences and through publications. Using resources available at the University and developing new interactive interventions and innovative performance evaluation techniques, this project will successfully implement and evaluate a number of innovative interventions to meet the objectives of the proposal.