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UC San Diego Family Residency Program Rotation Schedules

residents hugging in breakroom

Rotation Block Schedule By Year

Rotation Year 1

  • Continuity Clinic

    Type: Outpatient
    Location: Lewis, La Jolla or Scripps
    Duration: 1x/week
  • Community Med 1

    Type: Outpatient
    Location: Varies
    Duration: 2 Weeks

    Description: This is a great, relaxing 2 week rotation during your first and second year where you have a fun opportunity to become more involved with the community. Your schedule alternates between working with the underserved population at our UCSD homeless clinic and free student-run clinics, at the Human & Health Services Agency, and with adolescents at various high schools. You get the opportunity to teach medical students at the free clinics and all of the attendings are extremely nice and genuinely love what they do.

  • ED UC San Diego

    Type: ED
    Location: UC San Diego ED
    Duration: 2 Weeks

    Description: You’ll work 10 hour shifts in the ED at our equivalent of the San Diego County hospital. You’ll work alongside the ED residents and attendings to take care of all the patients in our ED and there are plenty of times for procedures. You learn how to triage, manage multiple patients at once, and determine what types of patients meet admission criteria

  • Float

    Type: Night Float
    Location: UC San Diego
    Duration: 1 Week

    Description: Intern night float work with a second year resident learning the ins and outs of managing the medicine team during nights. The senior resident teaches the intern how to manage various pages and situations as they arise. The intern admits patients under the supervision of the senior resident, calls consults if necessary, and staffs with the attending. It's a wonderful rotation for gaining experience and confidence at night, for developing appropriate differential diagnoses for hospital problems, and for prioritizing what needs to be done immediately and what can wait for the day team.

  • FM Ward Intern

    Type: Wards
    Location: UC San Diego
    Duration: 11 Weeks

    Description: This is the real deal. WARDS. Long hours but awesome learning. You'll manage our complicated FM patients. Work with a 3rd year and a co-intern, making a 3 person team. Usually start rounds around 0800 with teaching at 0730. Sign out 1830. You'll have one half day of clinic a week. Admit every day until 5pm. On weekends, one intern works and covers up to 8 patients.

  • Gynecology

    Type: Outpatient
    Location: Neighborhood Health Center
    Duration: 4 Weeks

    Description: This is an outpatient rotation with a community clinic. Most patients are underserved and many are Spanish-speaking. There are annual physicals including screening for pap smears and breast exams as well as contraceptive education. You’ll also practice doing wet mounts and get lots of experience with Nexplanon and IUD placements and removals. There is also colposcopy clinic that we work in one-on-one with an attending

  • IM Wards

    Type: Wards
    Location: UC San Diego
    Duration: 4 Weeks

    Description: This is a 4 week rotation of very typical inpatient medicine. You work on a team of 1 senior and 1 other intern with an attending. You admit patients and manage them with your team and learn a ton very quickly. You also have built in daily learning with the medicine program.

  • Inpatient Peds

    Type: Wards
    Location: Rady Children's Hospital
    Duration: 4 Weeks

    Description: You work as part of a team of 1 intern and a senior along with an attending. You are part of a general pediatrics team as well as a specialty team (Pulm, GI, Endo, Neuro). There are daily lectures and conferences with the pediatrics program. You work three weeks of days doing admissions and patient management, and one week of nights during which you only admit patients.

  • Newborn - Balboa

    Type: Wards
    Location: Naval Medical Center San Diego
    Duration: 2 Weeks

    Description: You work alongside Navy Peds residents, newborn nurse practitioners, and awesome pediatric faculty in a fairly high volume newborn nursery. The faculty and NP's help you to become confident in your newborn exam. You also get the opportunity to learn and become comfortable with doing circumcisions.

  • Newborn/NICU

    Type: Wards
    Location: UC San Diego
    Duration: 3 Weeks
  • OB UCSD

    Type: L&D
    Location: UC San Diego Jacobs Medical Center
    Duration: 4 Weeks

    Description: You function as an OB intern with exception to assisting in Cesarean sections and managing most of the high risk OB patients. You work 65-80 hours a week depending on if you are carrying the postpartum and triage pager. You work one half day a week in clinic `and can go to didactics if the census is not to large. You do most NSVDs and have the opportunity to learn many other OB procedures (place FSE, IUPC, AROM). This is a steep learning curve but the team works very hard to help you feel supported.

  • Ortho

    Type: Outpatient
    Location: UC San Diego
    Duration: 2 Weeks

    Description: Rotate with amazing UCSD orthopedic surgeons in their outpatient clinic where you see patients pre- and post-op and learn about indications for orthopedic referrals and surgeries. Learn how to do a very good MSK exam and read x-rays and MRIs for common fractures and other MSK pathology.

  • Sports Medicine

    Type: Outpatient
    Location: UC San Diego
    Duration: 4 Weeks

    Description: You will work alongside the Family/Sports medicine team including the fellows and faculty at various locations including the dedicated Sports Medicine clinic at Chancellor Park. Plenty of hands on experience doing MSK exams, joint injections, and MSK ultrasound. The focus of this rotation is generally on the non-surgical management of patients with MSK problems that would present to a primary care clinician. Fellows are nice and always happy to teach.

  • Surgery

    Type: Inpatient
    Location: Eisenhower Medical Center
    Duration: 4 Weeks

    Description: Located in beautiful Palm Springs at Eisenhower medical center, this rotation consists of working directly with a general surgery attending in their clinic and in the OR. With no surgical residents, it is possible to gain much more hands on experience and sharpen basic surgical skills, while gaining direct high yield knowledge from experienced attendings. Although time away from home can be difficult, and returning to San Diego for clinic during the rotation requires a bit more driving, it is alleviated with wonderful country club lodging accommodations and a generous meal allowance. With minimal distractions, it can provide an ideal time for studying as well!

  • Vacation

    Duration: 4 Weeks

    Travel? Hone your talents? Develop a Hobby? Use your vacation time in residency wisely, at it is a great chance to refresh and regenerate

Rotation Year 2

  • Continuity Clinic

    Type: Outpatient
    Location: Lewis, La Jolla, Scripps
    Duration: 3x/week
  • Behavioral Medicine

    Type: Outpatient
    Location: Saint Vincent DePaul, VA
    Duration: 4 Weeks

    Description: This 4 week rotation during second year involves primarily working at the VA walk-in psychiatry clinic as well as St Vincent de Paul clinic downtown. At the VA walk-in clinic you will see patients for acute mental health concerns, medication management/refills, and new patients who are not yet connected with an outpatient mental health provider, all of this in an urgent care type setting. At St Vincent de Paul, you will work alongside the third year combined residents during their psychiatry clinic time, seeing a wide array of outpatient psychiatric conditions and concerns.

  • Cardiology

    Type: Outpatient
    Location: UC San Diego
    Duration: 4 Weeks

    Description: 4 week rotation during 2nd year. This is a completely new rotation and is still under construction. Currently you work one on one with an attending at their clinic in Encinitas 1.5x a week. There you mostly see new patients and are able to review echos and stress tests with the attending. Two other days are spent on cardiology consult service for Thornton, SCVC and Jacobs. You are part of a small team (Attending and Fellow) where you see the consults that come in throughout the day.

  • Community

    Type: Outpatient
    Location: Varies
    Duration: 2 Weeks

    Description: This is the second half of a 2 part rotation in which you'll experience working with both underserved populations and adolescents. Second year residents precept UC San Diego medical students at the UCSD Free clinic which serves local uninsured populations. Additionally rotate in a local high school clinic dealing with topics such as STIs, mental health, contraception, and sport physicals.

  • Dermatology

    Type: Outpatient
    Location: Scripps
    Duration: 2 Weeks
  • ED Kaiser

    Type: ED
    Location: Kaiser
    Duration: 3 Weeks

    Description: This 3-week rotation occurs at one of two different Kaiser Permanente Emergency Departments. Residents work one on one with attending and have the opportunity to see the full breath of emergency medicine and gain procedure experience (ex: laceration repair, central line placement, lumbar puncture, paracentesis). KP has a robust didactic schedule, which is a requirement of this rotation and great addition to resident learning

  • ED VA

    Type: ED
    Location: VA
    Duration: 3 Weeks
  • Endo/GI

    Type: Outpatient - Subs
    Location: Varies
    Duration: 2 Weeks
  • ICU

    Type: ICU
    Location: VA
    Duration: 4 Weeks

    Description: This is a month long ICU rotation where you are an integral part of a critical care team that covers both pulmonary critical care and cardiac critical care. This is a fabulous experience to see a high volume of patients in the critical care setting and work with various attending who are truly experts in their field. Residents work with fellows who are great teachers and will provide teaching as time permits. This rotation also allows residents to get hands on experience on inpatient procedures (ex: lumbar puncture, paracentesis, thoracentesis).

  • Night Float

    Type: Night Float
    Location: UC San Diego
    Duration: 6 Weeks

    Description: 2nd year Night float: 5 nights a week you are Family Medicine senior. After receiving signout from the day team and eating comp’d dinner, you typically night round and follow-up on to-do’s. At Midnight and sometimes 4AM you check vitals and follow-up on floor items. You take care of all admission and all OB. You are also responsible for telephone triage during the entire shift. Some nights there are no admissions and you can sleep up to 5 hours! The hours are long; typically 6:30 to 8. If you are fortunate to do night float after Jan 1, there’s a good chance you will have company (intern) on most of your nights. While yes, they take care of writing admission H&P’s (unless there are multiple, at your discretion), there is a considerable amount of teaching (and time) involved in having an intern. I prefer having an intern as it brings a lot of satisfaction preparing them for nights on their own, plus your loneliness is considerably decreased.

  • Obstetrics

    Type: L&D
    Location: UC San Diego Hillcrest
    Duration: 4 Weeks
  • Ortho

    Type: Outpatient
    Location: UC San Diego 
    Duration: 2 Weeks

    Description: Rotate with amazing UCSD orthopedic surgeons in their outpatient clinic where you see patients pre- and post-op and learn about indications for orthopedic referrals and surgeries. Learn how to do a very good MSK exam and read x-rays and MRIs for common fractures and other MSK pathology.

  • Peds Kaiser

    Type: Outpatient
    Location: Kaiser
    Duration: 6 Weeks

    Description: 2nd year 4 week rotation at a Kaiser outpatient clinic, probably one of the best rotations we have. You work with an amazing Peds attending that loves to teach. You are here for 3 full days, you see a great mix of pediatric patients, from well child visits to all the bread and butter cases in Peds

  • Surgery

    Type: Outpatient- Subs
    Location: Varies
    Duration: 2 Weeks

    Description: In this rotation, the resident rotates through various outpatient procedure clinics with a mixed of FM attendings who have their own procedure clinics, as well as dermatologists. For examples, we rotate through lumps and bumps clinic for derm procedures, Moh's procedure clinics, as well as women's health clinics to get Nexplanon/ IUD/ colpo experience. We also work with a breast surgeon in clinic and well as a preo-op evaluation clinic.

  • Thornton Adult Medicine

    Type: Wards
    Location: UC San Diego
    Duration: 4 Weeks

    Description: During this 4 week rotation, you work one on one with a hospitalist on the medical oncology floor in Jacobs Hospital. You have a great deal of autonomy in caring for you patients, and experience what it's like to be a hospitalist.

  • Urology

    Type: Outpatient
    Location: Kaiser
    Duration: 2 Weeks

    Description: This rotation is a varied shadowing experience with multiple Kaiser Urologists in the outpatient setting. Other than bread and butter outpatient Urology, there is exposure to multiple procedures including cystoscopy, urodynamics, and vasectomy. Great hours, no notes, excellent teaching, and good exposure to Kaiser. You work at multiple sites throughout this well-organized rotation.

  • Vacation

    Duration: 4 Weeks

    Travel? Hone your talents? Develop a Hobby? Use your vacation time in residency wisely, at it is a great chance to refresh and regenerate

Rotation Year 3

  • Continuity Clinic

    Type: Outpatient
    Location: Lewis, La Jolla or Scripps
    Duration: 3x/week
  • Clinic Resident

    Type: Outpatient
    Location: UC San Diego
    Duration: 16 Weeks

    Description: This is the time when you really get to shine, hone your outpatient skills and obtain continuity in your home clinic. Your time is divided into 1 half day per week of clinic at St. Vincent’s (homeless clinic), 1 half day of procedures with our procedure attending, 4-5 half days of your continuity clinic and 1 half day of administrative time. This is the rotation that gets you in the groove to prepare you for graduation as an outpatient doctor.

  • Electives

    Type: Outpatient
    Location: Varies
    Duration: 12-14 Weeks
  • Geri-Eisenhower

    Type: Outpatient
    Location: Eisenhower Medical Center
    Duration: 4 Weeks

    Description: 3rd year rotation, 4 weeks out in Palm Springs, where the average age of the population is 78, yes 78. You spend the majority of your time (4 days/week) taking care of Dr Thrasher's SNF patients. Dr Thrasher is a Family Medicine faculty member at a residency in Palm Springs, so you work with one of their 2nd year residents as well. The residency puts you up in a condo on a Golf Course, and you get money for meals at the Hospital ($18/day, does not roll over to other days). You also get 1 day/week with a palliative doc doing inpatient consults, and go to an amazing Alzheimer’s caregiver support group which is the most practice-changing experience of the rotation.

  • Geri-Hospice

    Type: Outpatient
    Location: UC San Diego Medical Center
    Duration: 2 Weeks
  • HNS/Ophtho

    Type: Outpatient
    Location: Varies
    Duration: 3 Weeks

    Description: HNS - In this rotation, you rotates through a variety of Head and Neck clinics throughout the community. Clinics include Rady's ENT (where Pediatric patients are seen), Navy Balboa (where you see both Pediatric and Adult patients, depending on the day) and UCSD Neurology clinic. You will get to see lots of ear drums, both healthy and diseased, and learn what can be managed in most FM offices and what should be referred out.

    Ophtho - Opportunity to get good at your direct ophthalmoscope exam and find that optic disc! You work with attendings and ophthalmology residents at UCSD Hillcrest and Shiley Eye Center. You'll see both pediatrics and adults and get to observe multiple eye surgeries

     

  • Peds ED

    Type: ED
    Location: Rady Children's Hospital
    Duration: 2 Weeks
  • Peds Urgent Care

    Type: UC
    Location: UC San Diego
    Duration: 2 Weeks

    Description: Excellent rotation, where we work in various urgent care facilities around San Diego, seeing all ages of Pediatric patients with a variety of acute (usually) non-emergent issues. From viral illness, to asthma exacerbation, sports medicine injuries, eye complaints, GI complaints, etc. It is a really great way to see high volume of Pediatric common illnesses. You see the patient on your own, can order Point of Care Tests, and then discuss with kind helpful Pediatric attendings about the patient. You can then send them home, prescribe medications, or send them to the Emergency Room.

  • Ward Resident

    Type: Wards
    Location: UC San Diego
    Duration: 5 Weeks

    Description: Senior resident on the inpatient team for 5 weeks. This is your chance to practice being an inpatient attending basically. It's you, 2 interns, an attending, a night float, and sometimes a sub-I. It is your inpatient team, so you run rounds (walk, sit, combo?), talk to the ED about admissions, show up for OB deliveries (as newborn resuscitation or to assist in C sections) unless your interns have completed the respective rotations (newborn and OB). Typically you get sign out from night float at 7-7:30 each morning, there's 10-20 minutes of teaching (which is split amongst the attending, night float and you), then you round, do work, admissions as needed, and sign back out to night float each night at 6:30. You sign your patients out to covering residents on Friday around noon, one covers the team Friday night, the other covers Saturday, and you have truncated clinic Friday afternoon with Saturday as your day off!

  • Vacation

    Duration: 4 Weeks

    Travel? Hone your talents? Develop a Hobby? Use your vacation time in residency wisely, at it is a great chance to refresh and regenerate