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Family Medicine Teaching Service and Family Health Center Service

Throughout residency training at UPMC Shadyside, residents will spend time caring for adults on the inpatient teams. The patients cared for on these teams are drawn from the admissions of roughly 25 teaching family medicine physicians in our department, including the faculty.

Family Medicine Teaching Service

  • Residents determine who is followed on teaching services according to educational needs and workloads.
  • We have a dedicated teaching floor (Three East) and overflow teaching units.
  • Close daily working arrangements with nurses, nurse practitioners, clinical pharmacists, staff, medical students, faculty, community attendings, and consultants.
  • Can follow patients anywhere in the hospital.
  • Able to perform and also observe procedures on own patients, e.g., lines, venipuncture, see EGD in the GI Lab.
  • Long-standing excellent teaching arrangements with community attendings; many have graduated from our residency program.
  • Some community attendings also precept in the family health center office - improving the quality of the feedback from hospital to office.
  • Long-standing excellent teaching arrangements with consultants; many teach our residents in the outpatient setting as well. 
  • On-site resident room on the teaching floor (Three East) where sign-out and teaching rounds occur.

During this rotation, residents will evaluate and care for patients admitted by private medicine family physicians. The team of residents determines whether a patient is placed on the teaching service. This helps ensure that a wide variety of patients and illnesses are managed by each resident.

Residents at UPMC Shadyside are able to follow patients on any unit in the hospital. For example, when their patients whom they follow at the Family Health Center are admitted or transferred to an intensive care unit, they will continue to be followed by the same residents.

Another special feature is our Family Medicine Unit (Three East). This floor is dedicated to the Family Medicine Teaching Service and Family Health Center Service. Because the majority of patients are admitted to this floor, residents enjoy efficient rounding and a team approach develops between the attending physicians, residents, case coordinators, and nurses. The floor includes 23 patient beds, 16 of which can be monitored beds. The goal of this unit is to provide comprehensive care to family medicine patients, in a setting that promotes learning and teamwork among all involved.

There is NO competition for patients or procedures from the Internal Medicine Residency Program. The Family Medicine Service is functionally unopposed. The two Inpatient Teaching Programs function independently.

Family Health Center Service

  • Close longitudinal care with residents and the faculty's own patients from the Family Health Center
  • One-on-one supervision and teaching from 3rd year Family Senior and faculty
  • Chief also receives one-on-one supervision and teaching from faculty
  • Residents are able to follow their own nursing home patients who are admitted to the hospital
  • The same benefits as teaching service with respect to geographic teaching, close communication, and long-standing relationships with staff and consultants

The Family Health Center Service is composed of UPMC Shadyside Family Health Center patients requiring hospitalization. The resident follows patients during hospitalization and acts as the primary care provider at the Family Health Center, with supervision from the Family Senior Resident and a faculty member.

The Family Senior Resident position at UPMC Shadyside is a monthly rotating position held by a third-year resident. Their duties are to round on all patients on the Family Health Center Service and teach and supervise the first-year residents who are following their own patients or colleagues' patients in the hospital. The Family Senior Resident also receives direct supervision and teaching from faculty.