Clinical Log

Background

The Liaison Committee on Medical Education (LCME) is the agency that accredits medical schools in the United States. The LCME mandates that “an institution that offers a medical education program must have in place a system with central oversight to ensure that the faculty define the types of patients and clinical conditions that medical students must encounter, the appropriate clinical setting for the educational experiences, and the expected level of medical student responsibility. The faculty must monitor medical student experiences and modify them as necessary to ensure that the objectives of the medical education program are met.”

To ensure adherence to this mandate, UNC SOM created the UNC96, a list of conditions and symptoms reflective of the most important medical conditions in North Carolina (based on mortality, morbidity, prevalence, cost of care data, and faculty opinion). Before graduating, all students must participate in the care of patients with each of these conditions and symptoms. Students’ progress towards this requirement is monitored through the use of the Patient Log (on one45).

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UNC Family Medicine Clerkship Requirements

The conditions on the UNC 96 have been assigned to specific clerkships to assure that all students learn about these core conditions. During the Family Medicine Clerkship, all students are required to have contributed to the care of at least one patient with the conditions (from the UNC96 list) listed below.

As noted above, patient encounters will be monitored by completion of the Patient Log (on one45). At the midpoint of the rotation (i.e., near the end of week 3), students will first review the Patient Log with their clinical preceptor and then with their clerkship campus director. In reviewing the log with the clinical preceptor, students should discuss ways of achieving the required patient contacts within the practice by the end of the clerkship. If towards the end of the the clerkship, there are still conditions which students has not encountered, the student should work through relevant cases in Family Medicine Case Files (available to students through Book Exchange and on reserve in the Health Sciences Library) and mark off conditions in the Patient Log. Students may also use the MSK workshop during orientation and patients seen on prior rotations to check off core conditions and procedures on the Patient Log. Note that some conditions overlap. If a patient has Ischemic Heart Disease and Hyperlipidemia, students may check off both. Also note that wording on log is abbreviated. On the Family Medicine rotation, screening for cancers, STI and substance abuse is sufficient to check off those patient types. It is expected that all students complete all items on the Family Medicine patient log by the end of the 6 week rotation. The final grade will not be released if the log is not fully completed.

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