Our 4th Year Medical Student Rotation with the
Combined Family Medicine & Psychiatry Residency Program
at St. Vincent de Paul Village Family Health Center
Course Description:
St Vincent de Paul Village Health Center is a full-service community clinic serving the residents of St Vincent de Paul Village, the largest homeless shelter in Southern California, as well as the homeless of San Diego. In addition to Primary Care services, the clinic provides Psychiatric care and many other forms of specialty medicine. The clinic is the home of the UC San Diego Combined Family Medicine and Psychiatry Residency program, and serves as their primary care continuity clinic as well as a site of their year-long outpatient continuity experience in Psychiatry. Students completing an elective at our clinic would be participating in this established continuity community clinic.
Students see a full-spectrum of Community Medicine including initial assessment, continuity care, walk-in visits, and crisis intervention. Patient pathology seen is representative of traditional Community Medicine and includes a full spectrum of Primary Care medicine with high levels of mental health conditions, especially severe mood, anxiety, trauma, and psychotic disorders, substance use disorders, and dual diagnoses. Practitioners become facile in evaluating and understanding the interplay between homelessness, socioeconomic status, multiple comorbidity, physical health and mental health. Students are educated about the many resources available to patients in the larger Village and the surrounding community. Patients living in the Village have a collaborate team that helps to coordinate their recovery and who integrates and coordinates with their health providers.
Student schedules are built around a core of clinic days at the Family Health Center. Interspersed are Family Medicine and Psychiatry resident didactics (including Morbidity and Mortality Conference as well as Grand Rounds), and half-days spent with our Community Health nurses and Health Educators.
Applications for 21/22 are open and due April 30th by 11:59PM. Thank you!
Our one month fourth year rotation experience based in our Combined clinic (a homeless shelter based clinic) focuses on the care of high-risk, mentally and medically ill patients across cultures.
To help you plan for this rotation, these are the blocks that will be available for 2021/2022 season:
Block 1: 8/23/21 to 9/19/21
Block 2: 9/20/21 to 10/17/21
Block 3: 10/18/21 to 11/14/21
Applying is easy. Beginning March of each year, applicants can submit their application directly through our website. We'll ask you to provide your CV and describe your interest in an underserved rotation. You'll also be able to tell us when you'd like to rotate with us. Application status notifications are sent in early May.
The Sub Internship application requests the following information:
- Name
- Email Address
- Medical School
- Cut and Paste your curriculum vitae
- Essay – Describe your interest and/or background in working with the underserved. Tell us about your residency and post-residency plans. Include the type of practice and the patient populations you envision yourself working with after residency. (in one page)
- List your top three choices for rotation dates (dates will be listed when the application opens)
Thank you for your interest in our rotation.
Disclaimer: Due to every changing COVID policies, please be aware this rotation may be cancelled last minute to follow the newest COVID guidelines.
Course Details
Rotation length: 4 weeks
Workload: Two half-day sessions per day, Monday through Friday.
Available to: 4th-year medical students
Site: St Vincent de Paul Village Family Health Center
1501 Imperial Avenue
San Diego, CA 92101
Phone: (619) 233-8500 ext 1533
Director: Sarah Carreira, M.D.
Residency Program Director – UC San Diego Combined Program
Phone: (619) 233-8500 ext 1533
E-mail: combinedresidency@ucsd.edu
