Adolescent Medicine Elective

Course Overview

An exploration of adolescent medicine spanning inpatient and outpatient experiences. Our goal is to help students cultivate knowledge, skills, and self-efficacy in Adolescent Medicine competencies needed for both primary and specialty care.

Learning Objectives

• Develop a strategy for management of adolescent health issues, with specific focus on adjustment, adherence, and engagement of family.
• Recognize situations where adolescents benefit from the skills of professionals trained in the care of adolescents, versus where patients and families might be best engaged with primary care and mental health services.
• Discuss advocacy strategies (or quality improvement methods) you might use to improve or prevent at least one adolescent health problem seen in your patient population.
• Identify your areas of comfort and discomfort in caring for adolescent patients and recognize how these feelings will affect your future interactions with adolescents.
• Describe strategies for promoting adolescent self-care and responsibility in the area of sexual and reproductive health.
• Discuss the legal rights of minors, including consent and confidentiality.

Schedule of Activities

• The rotation administrator, Ms. Nadine Manns, will be sending you an introduction email (including details of when/where to report on the first day) and your schedule for the two weeks that you are with us. Please be sure to review these promptly and let Ms. Manns and Dr. Wiener know if there are any anticipated schedule conflicts (e.g., interviews, class meetings, your own appointments, etc.).
• You will spend mornings with the inpatient Adolescent Medicine team rounding on adolescents admitted to the inpatient service.
• Your afternoons will be spent going to a variety of outpatient clinic sites. The locations of these sites can be found on Blackboard via: PRAC.2013  --> Required ED/Outpatient --> Adolescent --> Directions & Addresses for Clinical Sites.
• Students are also expected to attend adolescent medicine didactic sessions that take place over the course of the week. The Adolescent Medicine Faculty supports students getting to didactics, required meetings, appointments, etc. Sometimes, faculty may forget when a student has somewhere else to be. We encourage students to take the responsibility to gracefully remind faculty if they need to leave.

Required Reading

The Adolescent Medicine Blackboard folder includes an “Adolescent Medicine Passport,” which offers a broader range of learning objectives (beyond the baseline ones listed here) that we hope you will begin to accomplish with this rotation.

There is far more content in the passport than most folks will have time to get through during their rotation. We operate under adult learning principles and will not be asking for proof of completion of the passport.

Student Evaluations

To receive a grade of Pass, students must:

• Attend clinical sessions, demonstrate enthusiasm, and be open to feedback and learning
• Demonstrate increasing communication skills and knowledge of adolescent health
• Complete a required student presentation at the end of the rotation. Details regarding the presentation will be sent along with other materials a week in advance.