Professional Training at CUHCC

A variety of medical students from the University of Minnesota rotate through CUHCC. The list of medical students includes:

• Early Clinical Education (ECE) - First-year medical students who come for half a day, one day a week for eight weeks.
• Urban Community Ambulatory Medicine (UCAM) - Third- or fourth-year medical students who come for three months.
• Primary Care selective (PCS) - Third- or fourth-year medical students who come for one month.
• Family Medicine Clerkship (FMC) - Third- or fourth-year medical students who for one month.
• BRIIDGE – Immigrant doctor graduates who come for nine months to prepare for residency in the United States.

University of Minnesota medical students come to CUHCC for four-to-twelve-week rotations. During their rotation, medical students experience medicine/pediatrics and family medicine in an urban community-based clinic. They are not only immersed in the medical setting, but they also experience patient care from the perspective of pharmacy, behavioral health, and other providers.

The educational emphasis is on culturally sensitive primary and family care, diagnostic assessment, and treatment planning in an underserved and diverse outpatient population of patients with multiple medical and mental illnesses.

CUHCC has Internal Medicine residents & Internal Medicine-Pediatric residents who do their continuity clinic here. CUHCC is the primary site for the Medicine-Pediatric residency program. Internal Medicine-Pediatric (Med-Peds) physicians are trained in the complex, acute, and chronic care of adults and children.

Our residents train for 3-4 years after medical school in the inpatient, intensive care, and outpatient settings. Residents who choose CUHCC as their training site have an interest in community health, service to underserved communities, and global health. Resident's work with internal medicine, pediatric, and Med-Peds preceptors to provide high-value care that is interprofessional, patient-centered, and based on the best evidence.

The post-baccalaureate Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP) program is designed for post-baccalaureate nurses enrolled in a Doctorate of Nurse Practice program to expand their practice and provide primary care to families and individuals.

Although there are 12 subspecialties for DNPs, CUHCC has programs for 4 of those subspecialties:

• Pediatrics
• Psychiatry/Mental Health
• Family Medicine
• Midwifery

Clinical Trainee independently performs mental health diagnostic assessments, explanation of findings, and psychotherapy. Psychotherapy includes the creation of the individual treatment plan, review of the treatment plan with clients and individuals, and group outpatient therapy sessions. Clinical Trainees will need to be able to make a minimum of 6-month commitment to serve clients to provide psychotherapy.

DNP students function as “Clinical Trainees” when providing diagnostic assessments, explanations of findings, and psychotherapy.

Care coordination services support the integration of primary and behavioral healthcare services. It involves bringing together all of the care providers of a patient’s care team and information systems as allowed by the patient.

Care teams include the patient, family, CUHCC providers, CUHCC care coordinator, health specialists, other community members, and anyone else the patient may want to include. Benefits of care coordination include the opportunity to share the patient’s ideas about health, create a unified plan of care, find resources, manage symptoms, be heard and encouraged, and remove barriers to the patient’s health. Every patient of CUHCC is eligible to receive care coordination services, if the service is deemed to be the most appropriate service.

CUHCC is an established community psychiatry training site for University of Minnesota third-year psychiatry residents. Third-year adult psychiatry residents spend a half day every week over six months at CUHCC learning community and transcultural psychiatry.

Residents learn to work with multicultural populations through specifically selected and monitored patient caseloads. They improve clinical expertise with an emphasis on social/developmental, cultural, and trauma-oriented context as well as psychopharmacology, and ethno-transference/countertransference.

Residents develop a multi-dimensional treatment plan that reflects biopsychosocial needs of their patients, including close work with CUHCC primary care providers and residents, case managers, domestic abuse advocates, social work triage, nurses, therapists, and other treatment team members.

Dental Therapists are the newest members of the oral healthcare team created to increase access to care for the underserved and underinsured populations. Dental therapists can provide preventive and direct restorative care to patients of all ages under the supervision of a dentist. Dental therapy students from the University of Minnesota School of Dentistry will obtain their Bachelor of Science in Dental Hygiene and Master of Dental Therapy upon graduating.

The Dental Therapy Students come to CUHCC twice. The first rotation is to provide preventive services for pediatric patients during their DT4 (second year) of the program. The second rotation is during their MDT (final year) of the program and they complete 2 two-week long rotations in which they provide preventive and restorative dental care as well as, participate in an interprofessional rotation.

The Oral Surgery Fellow is a licensed general practice dentist who is entering into the oral surgery program at the University of Minnesota. The fellow is at CUHCC for a 1-year rotation, 1-2 days a week.

The residents provide comprehensive medication management services to 4 to 6 patients per half-day. Many of these visits require the use of an interpreter in the patient’s preferred language. The residents attend interprofessional care team meetings and regularly provide pharmacotherapy education for medical residents, students, and staff.

The residents work collaboratively with the health care team which may include medical, mental health, nursing, outside specialists, interpreters, case managers, home health nurses, family caregivers, and care coordinators. The residents are responsible for all aspects of pharmaceutical care practice including medication management, assessment of the patient’s medication-related needs, identification of drug therapy problems, individualized care plan development with interventions, and follow-up evaluation.

The residents assist in the management and quality improvement of our medication use system, which includes in-clinic pharmaceuticals and vaccinations. The residents are responsible for managing our patient assistance program, which supplies approximately twenty patients with necessary medications they would not be able to afford otherwise. The residents also have the opportunity to teach pharmacy students in the Pharmaceutical Care Learning Center each semester.