Located in Front Royal, Virginia, the Shenandoah Valley Family Practice Residency provides quality medical training while caring directly for patients in the clinical setting. Shenandoah Valley Family Practice Residency faculty members have included a VAFP Virginia Family Physician of the Year Award winner and three VAFP Virginia Teacher of the Year Award winners. The Virginia Academy of Family Physicians (VAFP) established these awards to recognize organization members who have set themselves apart through their distinguished professional service and accomplishments. Both Family Physician of the Year Award and Teacher of the Year Award recipients receive a commemorative certificate at the annual meeting of the VAFP. In addition to providing exceptional and compassionate medical care, nominees for Virginia Family Physician of the Year must play a constructive role in community affairs and serve as a positive example in the medical community. Virginia Teacher of the Year candidates must exhibit similar exemplary performance while providing instruction at the medical school, residency faculty, or community preceptorship level
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Offering programs in northwestern Virginia’s rural areas, Shenandoah Valley Family Practice Residency emphasizes in-depth, personalized health care training in a variety of settings. Practitioners in the Shenandoah Valley Family Practice Residency program gain experience that includes caring for injuries to limbs. Leg fractures are typically associated with falls and speed-related injuries, where something hits hard and fast. Imaging tests such as X-rays are the first step in identifying the issue at hand and developing a plan for putting the bone’s broken parts back together. In cases where the fracture cannot easily be resolved, artificial rods and screws may also be used in providing proper support and fixing the placement of bone fragments. Once the bones are properly oriented and affixed, they are held in place through the use of a plastic or plaster cast. Typically 6-8 weeks in the cast is enough for the broken bones to fully heal, with crutches used to prevent too much pressure being placed on the leg while it is healing. Keep in mind that sprains can be more serious than they appear at first. In cases where the sprain does not heal within a few days, or the leg cannot bear the body weight and the joint is numb or loose, a torn ligament may be the issue, and physician assistance should be sought. The Shenandoah Valley Family Practice Residency is a three-year program providing doctors with education and practical experience in treating patients of all ages. Those accepted in the Shenandoah Valley Family Practice Residency program learn different approaches to providing patient care.
An article published by a peer-reviewed medical journal, Annals of Family Medicine, discusses the possibility of reducing the transactional functions of physicians and veering toward personalized healthcare to meet the needs of the patients. The article noted that time- and energy-consuming transactional tasks such as data gathering and entry, documentation of care, guideline-based disease management, billing, and even preventive care can get in the way of physicians’ true aspiration: providing individualized care and developing long-term relationships with patients. To make the shift to personalized care possible, changes would need to happen at all levels in medicine, including areas from education to delivery organizations, policies, tools, and payment. Physicians could undergo training and development in personalized care, including oral and written communication skills. Hospitals and other healthcare organizations would need to examine support staffing ratios to accommodate the transactional tasks that would be delegated among medical assistants and other health care personnel. The Shenandoah Valley Family Practice Residency Program (SVFPRP) is a unique learning opportunity for doctors interested in family medicine, with elective options available for subspecialties including global medicine and obstetrics. In particular, the Shenandoah Valley Family Practice Residency Program focuses on the development of talented physicians with an interest in practicing rural medicine. The state of rural medicine in the United States is causing concern, as doctors in these areas are choosing to relocate or retire, leaving behind a crucial community position to be filled. For residents still considering their career paths, below are three reasons to consider rural medicine. 1. Ongoing learning opportunities. Rural physicians are often expected to serve as a dynamic medical resource for a whole community. They treat illnesses many urban doctors never study, as these cases are often relegated to nearby specialists. Rural physicians are always learning, encountering new conditions and gaining new skills on the job. 2. Assistance on student loan payments. Due to the high need for skill in rural areas, the U.S. government offers state and federally funded loan repayment and reimbursement programs for those who work in rural medicine. In many cases, the longer a physician works in rural medicine, the more financial incentives he or she receives. 3. No job shortages. Rural areas of the U.S. are in desperate need of talented doctors, a problem only sure to grow, as research indicates there may be a shortage of as many as 90,000 physicians in just six years. With the ratio of doctors to patients at one for every 2,500 people in rural areas, physicians who work in these areas will never find themselves struggling to find work. Located in Front Royal, Virginia, the Shenandoah Valley Family Practice Residency is an accredited program geared toward rural practice. The Shenandoah Valley Family Practice Residency includes a thorough grounding in obstetrical practice for the family physician. Ectopic pregnancy is the most common cause of death in a pregnant patient’s first trimester and affects nearly 2 percent of pregnancies. It develops when a fertilized egg attaches outside the uterus, typically in the fallopian tube. When this happens, the zygote cannot grow, and the mother’s life may be in danger. A patient with this condition often presents with abdominal pain and has missed periods. To determine whether an ectopic pregnancy is the cause, the physician performs a pregnancy test. If the result is positive, the doctor can perform a transvaginal ultrasound, which images the reproductive tract and can determine whether the pregnancy is healthy. If the pregnancy is ectopic, the ultrasound is less likely to prove ectopic pregnancy conclusively and more likely to reveal an undefined mass. Analysis of the patient’s beta hCG hormone levels can usually determine whether this mass is indicative of an ectopic pregnancy, as these hormones tend to rise significantly when a person is gestating. The Shenandoah Valley Family Practice Residency offers comprehensive training to early-career family physicians, many of whom may wish to practice in rural settings with limited resources. To prepare residents for this kind of care, the Shenandoah Valley Family Practice Residency provides residents with more emergency psychiatry training than is typical for similar programs. When a patient with psychosis presents in the emergency room, he or she requires both medical and psychiatric stabilization. The first step is triage and clinical assessment, which determines whether the patient is in need of immediate medical attention. If no such care is needed, the team must determine if the patient can wait alone for further attention or if he or she needs supervision, a secluded waiting area, or to be placed in a secured room. The care team then moves on to stabilize the patient's psychiatric condition. Typically, the goal of this endeavor is to calm any agitation, reduce disruptive behaviors, and minimize threat of harm to the self or others. Medication, either intramuscular or oral, can help to speed this process, although many experts urge behavioral interventions to be a first course of action. The patient typically then receives a complete diagnostic workup, including thorough evaluation of first-onset psychiatric symptoms. All patients receive a psychiatric evaluation to determine whether the patient is safe for discharge or must be admitted into an inpatient facility or other treatment setting. Committed to providing comprehensive training for family physicians, the Shenandoah Valley Family Practice Residency strives to ensure residents' competence in identifying and responding to mental health issues. The Shenandoah Valley Family Practice Residency's curriculum on behavioral health and psychiatry stands out as one of the few nationwide to meet the American Psychiatric Association's recommendations for training in family medicine. If a clinician suspects that a patient has a problem with an addictive substance, he or she may present the patient with four key questions. These questions are known as the CAGE screening tool. Initially created specifically to screen for alcohol dependency, the questionnaire now includes an adapted form that incorporates drug use. The first question inquires as to whether the patient feels it might be necessary to cut down (C) on drinking or use of drugs, while the second asks if the patient has felt annoyed (A) by others’ criticism of his or her drug or alcohol use. The third question screens for any feelings of guilt (G) that the patient may have about his or her use, and the fourth asks if the patient has used alcohol or drugs in the morning as an eye-opener (E) to eliminate a hangover or calm the nerves. A “no” answer results in no points, and a “yes” answer is worth one point. Higher scores indicate a greater likelihood of problems with drugs or alcohol. A score of two or more is defined as clinically significant. The Shenandoah Valley Family Practice Residency is a rural-oriented program located in northwestern Virginia. Fully accredited by the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME) and the American Osteopathic Association (AOA), the Shenandoah Valley Family Practice Residency Program recently achieved the ACGME's Osteopathic Recognition accreditation. In 2014, the AOA, the ACGME, and the American Association of Colleges of Osteopathic Medicine (AACOM), agreed to the formation of a single system for graduate medical education accreditation in the United States. The new system, which is scheduled to be fully implemented in 2020, will allow MD and DO graduates to complete their residency education in ACGME-accredited programs. Additionally, the system will recognize the unique contributions osteopathic medical professionals have made to the health care industry. The single accreditation system was established to help maintain consistent evaluation standards for resident physicians, eliminate duplication in the graduate medical education accreditation process, provide cost savings for the institutions that currently offer dual programs, and ensure that both MD and DO residency applicants can attend accredited programs. Rural environments require a different sort of medical professional than urban centers. The focus of the Shenandoah Valley Family Practice Residency is to equip new physicians with the skills needed to handle the unique problems that arise in smaller towns. There are one and half times as many primary-care physicians per person in urban areas as there are in rural areas. For specialties like orthopedics, cardiology, and oncology, the number rises to two and half times as many physicians per person. This means that rural doctors tend to cover a wider variety of medical needs and procedures, and need to have broader skills. These kinds of situations and opportunities are what training programs like the Shenandoah Valley Family Practice Residency seek to address. Working in a rural area as a medical professional does have its benefits. The lower cost of living in the country allows for a doctor’s salary to go much farther than it would in a city where rents and mortgages are high, as are the prices of goods. An additional benefit may be lower stress, despite the lower density of physicians to patients. According to one survey, 61 percent of rural physicians have said that the pace is slower at their practices in the country that it was in the city. And doctors in rural areas tend to know their patients better, leading to greater professional and personal satisfaction. The Shenandoah Valley Family Practice Residency, like approximately 9,600 other United States residency programs, is accredited by the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME). The Shenandoah Valley Family Practice Residency is subject to review based on ACGME’s milestones, which are designed to assess the quality of residency programs and facilitate improvements when necessary. Milestones can be seen as developmental outcomes, such as skills, attitudes, and performance, which are competency-based. They were put in place by ACGME along with the American Board of Medical Specialties and residents to help residencies’ educational efforts result in competent and highly trained physicians. For residency programs, milestones assist in creating curricula and designing assessments. They also provide a framework with which to identify residents who may be struggling. Milestones impact residents themselves by providing transparent expectations, supporting self-motivated learning, and improving mechanisms for clear feedback. In terms of the ACGME’s accreditation efforts, the milestones increase public accountability and enable continuous program monitoring. |
AuthorOverseen by Dr. Frank Dennehy, Shenandoah Valley Family Practice Residency Program offers opportunities for students who are interested in family medicine. Archives
November 2021
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