Department of Family and Community Medicine

Chair

Glen R. Couchman, M.D.

Department Information

The goal of the Department of Family and Community Medicine is to prepare medical students for family-oriented health care delivery and to give students an understanding of the family as a basic unit of society. The program is broad, and emphasizes comprehensive medical care for the whole family. It is taught by a core of full-time faculty members and a large contingent of practicing physicians who serve as part-time faculty. Together, this team exposes students to the role of the physician in the medical community as well as in the patient community.

Education

The department offers two required courses for first-year students. Working with Patients, taught in the winter of the first year, introduces students to methods for dealing with patients. Physical Diagnosis, which begins in the spring of the first year, is taught jointly with the Department of Internal Medicine; it introduces students to medical history-taking and bedside examination. A required preceptorship program for second-year students applies the concepts of primary care to the context of a practicing physician's office. Students rotate through the local community and surrounding areas. A clerkship in the third year exposes students to family practice in a clinical setting.

The department also offers an elective course: Preclinical Preceptorship Program. This course is offered during the summer months following the first year of medical school. Students are matched with a family physician in Texas and spend four weeks working with this doctor. The course is designed to improve the students' clinical skills.

Courses

Family and Community Medicine

Contact Information
Department of Family and Community Medicine
The Texas A&M Health Science Center - College of Medicine
Scott & White Hospital
2401 South 31st Street
Temple, TX 76508

Academic Offices
Phone: (254) 771-8400
Fax: (254) 771-8493
Email: skitchen@swmail.sw.org