Providence Portland: Advanced Focus in Behavioral Medicine

Responsible Faculty:  Robert Lusk, M.D.

The advanced focus in HIV medicine is intended to give graduates the knowledge, skills, and experience to provide primary care to patients with HIV infection.  Graduates will be able to diagnose, monitor, and treat patients with HIV infection, including antiretroviral medications with the expectation that consultation with an ID specialist may be required for complicated cases.

The curriculum has several components:

1. There is a monthly HIV didactic conference or journal club.
2. Residents will work with an ID faculty member in a shared practice as one of the required two-weekly continuity clinics (the other weekly clinic will be a general medicine clinic).
3. Residents will take the ID elective.  While the rotation is not all HIV specific, a large proportion of our patients are HIV+.
4. Residents will take the Palliative Care elective.  There will be clinical experiences specific to HIV and time spent in an HIV care facility, in addition to the regular palliative care curriculum.
5. Residents taking the advanced focus will develop a proposal for a quality improvement project with one of the ID faculty.  After approval, they will implement the project and track its success.
6. Residents will be required to present the project as a poster or workshop at a regional or national meeting.

Several tools will be used to evaluate the resident’s progress through the advanced focus area in HIV medicine.

1. A biannual evaluation from the faculty in shared practice.
2. A test of medical knowledge will be given during the resident’s R-3 year.  This must be successfully passed to graduate with the advanced focus.
3. ID faculty will evaluate the resident’s quality improvement project and determine if it has been successfully completed.
4. Residents will be assessed via a mini-CEX in the skills of taking a history, performing a physical exam and counseling a patient who is newly diagnosed with HIV infection.
5. Residents will perform a professionalism self-reflection about the response of medicine to HIV infection.  Residents will be encouraged to read contemporary literature from the 80’s and 90’s and compare it to literature about HIV infection today.
6. Residents will work in a variety of care settings that emphasize the multidisciplinary nature of HIV care.  Residents will discuss the nature of this approach with team members as part of a self-reflection.

(back to Advanced Focus Areas)