The Road to Excellence for Primary Care Resident Teaching Clinics

Primary care residency programs and their associated primary care clinics face challenges in their goal to simultaneously provide a good education for tomorrow's doctors and excellent care for today's patients. A team from the Center for Excellence in Primary Care at the University of California, San Francisco, conducted site visits to 23 family medicine, internal medicine, and pediatric residency teaching clinics. The authors found that a number of programs have transformed themselves with respect to engaged leadership, resident scheduling, continuity of care for patients and residents, team-based care, and resident engagement in practice improvement. In this Commentary, the authors highlight the features of transforming programs that are melding inspiring resident education with excellent patient care. The authors propose a model, the 10 + 3 Building Blocks of Primary Care Teaching Clinics, to illustrate the themes that characterize transforming primary care residency programs.