PROCEDURES
Most of our graduates use a wide range of procedural skills in their practice, and Valley Family Medicine procedural training is designed to prepare our residents well for this. While our residents learn procedure skills in a variety of settings, each resident gets written faculty feedback as they do each procedure so they know what steps they are doing well and what steps to focus on learning. The faculty comments also certify when residents are fully competent to do a procedure independently.
VFM has integrated procedure clinics where residents can gain competence through repeated opportunities to perform procedures they could expect to see in their own family medicine practice. Among the the procedures residents experience are:
- Skin Excisions
- Toenail Removals
- Nexplanon Insertions/Removals
- IUD Placements/Removals
- Circumcisions
- Endometrial Biopsy
Residents who are interested also have the opportunity to be involved in Vasectomies, Manual Uterine Aspirations, and Flex Sigmoidoscopies.
Residents also have the opportunity to be assigned to the VFM Colposcopy Clinic, working with family medicine faculty trained in coloposcopy, in addition to assigned time in a dedicated OB-Gyn clinic in VFM with Dr. Dara Jolly, where residents learn skills like First Trimester Dating using ultrasound.
Sports medicine faculty from the Valley Family Medicine Residency program spend dedicated time with the residents at the clinic precepting musculoskeletal procedures:
- Joint Injections
- Joint Aspirations
- Casting
- Splinting
Osteopathic residents also have access to specialty OMT clinic where they can practice their osteopathic manipulation skills.
Inpatient procedures in obstetrics, internal medicine, and pediatrics are supervised by either VFM of specialty faculty, with similar written step by step feedback. These procedures include:
- Intrauterine Pressure Catheter and Fetal Scalp Electrode placement
- Incision & Drainage
- Lumbar Puncture
We are expanding our usage of Point of Care Ultrasound in both the clinic and the hospital. As such, we are thrilled to have two dedicated butterfly probes for the usage of our inpatient team, and two dedicated butterfly probes for usage in the Family Medicine clinic.