Introduction to
Special Topics Resources

Incorporated into the contract mandate was that family medicine collaborate with internal medicine and pediatrics on specification of minimum prerequisites of all medical students entering the third-year clerkships across the following areas of special interest to the government for the work of the contract:

• End-of-life and palliative care
• Geriatrics
• Genetics
• Healthy People 2010 objectives
• Informatics
• Mental Health
• Substance abuse
• Oral Health

Additionally, the contract specified that the resource was to address competencies for these topics across the four-year medical school continuum and to suggest educational strategies and assessment methods as with the other parts of the resource. The beauty of this model is that this list of topics was to be included, but not exclusive. Therefore, the model allowed for other topics of importance to be added over time. The events of 9/11 brought out the importance of including a new topic. The FMCR Executive Committee and leader of the Family Medicine Clerkship/Post Clerkship workgroup decided post 9/11 to add the topic of bioterrorism to this list.

The Preclerkship Collaborative Workgroup members from family medicine, internal medicine and pediatrics derived their specialty-independent prerequisites for the topics specified in the contract in preparation for the first meeting of that workgroup. This information was then used by "special topic teams," whose members came, in part, from both FMCR Workgroups so as to ensure that the teams could address competencies across the four-year continuum for all students. Team membership also drew, where possible, upon Advisory Committee members who had been selected in part for their special expertise in one of these areas. These special topic teams then developed competencies within the larger ACGME framework and starred those which they judged to be appropriate for the more clinically advanced levels. This level of guidance was thought to be important to allow institutions flexibility in how and when the basic versus more clinically advanced competencies are taught, depending on the unique institutional environment and context.

For each of these topics, a resource has been developed which will help the user understand what the recommended competencies for students to learn are within the ACGME framework for a given topic, how they might spread the teaching of the competencies over a four-year continuum with the advanced, clinical teaching occurring generally during the latter half of that continuum, what educational strategies and assessment methods they might use, and suggested resources.