The ties that bind – Learning groups in family medicine residency

Abstract

Family medicine training encompasses the need to develop a diverse skillset and the ability to practice in different settings. During three years of training, family medicine residents from National University Health System (NUHS) rapidly transit through many hospital rotations with varying specialty-specific competency requirements. Throughout this period, each resident is rostered to run a half-day primary care clinic on the same day each week and is assigned a dedicated faculty member to supervise him during the session. Each faculty member is assigned up to four to six residents for the half-day sessions every week. There is a need to contextualise what is learnt in hospital to primary care, and to effectively integrate knowledge across disciplines. We describe here a tool that the NUHS family medicine residency has used to bring together faculty and residents of varying seniorities and locations for discussion, reflection, and growth.