Community Hospital in a University Setting
The best of both worlds. It is such a trite phrase, and yet so perfectly describes Highland Hospital. Highland Hospital is a 270 bed hospital tucked into the edge of Highland Park, approximately one mile from the large university hospital, Strong Memorial. Highland is the oldest hospital in Rochester, founded in 1889 as a homeopathic hospital, and where insulin was first used in the United States.
Highland is our hospital, the site of the third oldest family medicine program in the country, a hospital where family medicine has been part of the culture since 1969, when family medicine was first established as a specialty.
It is a hospital with a rich history of collaboration, where family physicians, internists, and subspecialists greet each other warmly and curbside consult each other over coffee at Primary Care Grand Rounds every Tuesday morning; where family physician attendings have C-section privileges, attend every resident continuity delivery, and attend on our busy adult medicine inpatient service.
It is a hospital large enough to have excellent services, and yet small enough where you get to know all the cardiologists, nephrologists, OB/GYNs, and surgeons, and they get to know you. They become invested in your education, in you personally.
There are fellowships for family physicians in Geriatrics, Maternal & Child Health, and Palliative Care and which all have active clinical roles in the hospital setting.
Emphasis on Psychosocial Medicine
This aspect of our training truly makes us unique. The goal of psychosocial medicine (PSM) is the development of personal and professional skills. The ability of Family Physicians to communicate with patients and to think on a systems level is what sets us apart and allows us to function as excellent clinicians. A few highlights of this rotation:
- 40% of residents’ time is spent in their outpatient practice, providing an opportunity to implement many of their PSM skills and truly experience continuity with their patients.
- All residents will be trained in Suboxone as part of this rotation.
- Residents participate in a Family Systems Medicine Practicum co-taught by a family physician and a family therapist
- Short-term primary care counseling, core seminars and educational experiences in alcoholism and chemical dependency, parent counseling, eating disorders, psychopharmacology, and child psychiatry
- Intensive small group experience with an analytically oriented psychiatrist, providing an opportunity for self-reflection and education about the dynamics of small groups.
In total, the Psychosocial Medicine rotation is generally considered pivotal in the development of every family physician. Read more detailed information.