Physician Mentor Program

General Description

You will be paired with a practicing physician, who will serve as a mentor to you throughout your first year of medical school.  The goals are very specific, and your PCM-1 mentor will serve a different role than your Physician Advisor.

You will meet with your physician mentor once a month and share in her/his experience of practicing medicine.  It does not matter what specialty you are paired with as long the mentor has a clinical practice and can serve the goals of the program listed below.

Some activities may include:

1)      See patients in the office

2)      Hospital rounds with mentor

3)      Attend department meetings

4)      Attend professional association event with mentor

5)      Observe administrative activities and aspects of office practice

6)      Observe community involvement of physicians

7)      Observe office procedures

And above all- this is your place to practice the skills you are learning in PCM-1.  As you learn medical interviewing and history taking, you should be practicing with your mentor on real patients.  As you learn the physical exam, you should be practicing with your mentor.  In the second semester, you will do two graded medical interviews on your mentor’s patients.

Objectives and Outcomes

1. To foster a personal relationship between a medical student and a physician.
2. To provide students an opportunity to interact with their future colleagues on a professional and social basis.
3. To nurture inspiration, motivation and enthusiasm for a career in medicine.
4. To observe how career choices have affected the physician’s lifestyle.
5. To provide clinical reinforcement to the pre-clerkship curriculum.
6. To observe the decision-making process in clinical medicine.
7. To improve observation skills; the ability to assess the environment, select critical cues, attend to what is seen and transfer to subsequent interactions.
8. To begin to understand the complexities of the medical profession.
9. To begin to foster the development of time management skills to balance the profession of medicine with one’s personal life.
10. To observe the importance of effective communication skills with establishing a good doctor-patient relationship.
11. To practice the patient centered care skills learned in PCM-1 such as the medical interview and physical exam.

 Requirements

You are required to meet with your physician mentor once a month, and you are responsible for initiating contact with your assigned mentor.  The participating physicians will be notified in advance of their assigned medical student and will be expecting your call/page/e-mail, etc.

PHYSICIAN MENTOR PAIRS

You will have ONE Physician Mentor-Student Mentor Program Reflection due by the end of each semester:

Week of November 26, 2007

April 30, 2008

Reflections should be uploaded through the Portfolio program in myLUMEN.

If at any time, you are having difficulty meeting with your mentor, contact the PCM 1 Education Specialist Ms. Diane Stancik at 708-216-8219.

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