Continuity Clinic

At the beginning of training, first-year residents are assigned to one of our three primary continuity sites - UofL Pediatrics-C&Y, UofL Pediatrics-Broadway and UofL Pediatrics-Stonestreet - for their continuity clinic. One half day each week, residents attend their assigned outpatient clinic on the same day of the week throughout their three-year residency allowing for residents to accumulate a panel of patients for which they have continuity. Residents are able to watch these patients grow and develop over three years and often develop a strong bond with their patients and their families.

At each site, the residents are assigned a continuity clinic mentor who acts as a preceptor and also conducts structured clinical observations. Residents also complete an online curriculum on common pediatric outpatient topics and discussions on these modules are facilitated by their continuity clinic mentor.

The continuity of care practices are designed to provide the house officer with a longitudinal perspective of growth, development and disease evolution in the pediatric patient by creating and maintaining a defined bank of patients as the individual resident's "private practice." Residents are expected to begin to develop their "practice" from the first day of entry into the training program and to continue to actively recruit patients into their practice throughout their years of training. Patients may be recruited during the nursery, wards training or emergency room rotations.

In 2009, our clinics kept our residents and faculty quite busy as the following number of annual visits show:

• UofL Pediatrics-C&Y: 17,356
• UofL Pediatrics-Broadway: 16,457
• UofL Pediatrics-Stonestreet: 18,933