HRSA www.hrsa.gov has awarded $1.1 million to the University of Missouri, School of Medicine http://medicine.missouri.edu to pilot a new project. The project “Aligning Residency Education with Clinical Practice Transformation” will teach family medicine resident physicians to work as team in order to provide comprehensive primary care to patients throughout their lifetime while using the concept of patient-centered medical homes.
Erika Ringdahl, MD, Director of the MU Family Medicine Residency Program and Professor of Family and Community Medicine at the MU School of Medicine, is the lead investigator for the five year project funded by HRSA.
The project has specific goals. The first goal is to integrate behavioral health and primary care, by bringing licensed clinical social workers, psychologists, and psychiatrists into the clinics to work with the resident physicians, staff, and faculty
The other goal is to ensure that family physicians are also effective teachers and leaders in their communities. The program will make it possible for residents and family physicians to obtain advanced teaching skills both by hands-on learning and learning through online courses.