Patient Care
Goals
- Gather essential and accurate information necessary to provide comprehensive care to adult patient with neurologic symptoms.
- Demonstrate effective and appropriate clinical problem solving skills using evidence-based medical knowledge and sound clinical judgment.
- Demonstrate increasing ability to independently assess, make decisions, counsel adult patients with neurologic disease and their families, and medically manage patients, under the supervision of the attending physician.
Objectives
Residents will develop basic skills in the diagnosis, evaluation, and management of neurologic patients in the outpatient specialty clinic setting.
Medical knowledge
Goals
- Develop self-directed learning skills essential to the maintenance of expertise in Neurology.
- Use internet and printed resources including primary and secondary literature, relevant texts and published databases to acquire, critically evaluate, and use current knowledge regarding diagnostic test availability and applicability, natural history, and management of each disorder with which clinic patients are diagnosed.
- Develop an adequate knowledge base in neurology and the neurosciences.
- Learn how the health care system functions, especially as relevant to the patient with neurologic disease.
Objectives
Residents will develop basic knowledge with regard to subspecialty care of neurologic diseases through background reading in a subspecialty- and patient-specific fashion.
Interpersonal and Communication Skills
Goals
- Residents will become skillful listeners, and develop specific proficiency in communicating with neurologic patients through verbal and non-verbal means.
- Residents will learn to communicate rapidly and efficiently with other team members in order to ensure that proper therapies can be provided in a timely manner.
- Residents will learn to clearly communicate neurological assessments and plans to patients, their families, and members of the multidisciplinary care team. They will become specifically proficient in discussing end of life care.
Objectives
Residents will:
- Present patients to faculty succinctly and completely.
- Develop superb skills in the dictation and completion of patient reports. These reports will be completed in a timely manner in accordance with hospital policies.
- Residents will learn to communicate clearly with patients and families.
Practice-Based Learning and Improvement
Goals
- Demonstrate knowledge, skills and attitudes needed for continuous self-assessment, using scientific methods and evidence to investigate, evaluate, and improve one’s patient care practice.
- Identify opportunities for improvement.
Objectives
Residents will:
- Systematically review outpatient cases and use the feedback generated to improve upon subsequent patients’ care.
- Learn to critically appraise the neurologic literature, with emphasis on clinical trial design and outcome measures.
- Become familiar with authoritative sources of neurologic practice guidance, such as American Academy of Neurology scientific statements, and how to access these resources on-line.
- Maintain a patient log for tracking number and various diagnosis of patients seen to ensure an adequate educational experience.
- Be responsible for tracking patients and procedures performed via the electronic patient/procedure log. These data can be used by the resident in the 6-month self-evaluation to determine where further patient experience is needed.
- Incorporate evaluation feedback into daily practice.
Professionalism
Goals
- Learn ethical, regulatory, and legal aspects of neurologic care, including the difference between standard and investigational treatments.
- Demonstrate sensitivity to the personal, cultural, and religious values that influence patients’ medical decisions in the context neurologic disease, and a compassionate approach to end of life care.
- Demonstrate responsiveness to patient needs that supersedes self-interest.
- Demonstrate compassion, integrity, accountability and respect in all interactions with patients from diverse backgrounds in gender, age, culture, race, religion, physical and cognitive ability and sexual orientation.
- Adhere to ethical principles by respecting confidentiality of medical information.
Objectives
Residents will:
- Solidify their foundation of the professional and ethical practice of medicine.
- Remember that they represent the UW Department of Neurology with their actions and communications. The highest standards of professionalism must be maintained at all times, especially in interactions with patients and their families, with other physicians, and with allied health staff.
- Adhere to clinic schedules and minimize patient inconvenience.
- Undergo HIPAA training and comply with HIPAA rules and ethical principles.
- Be responsible for tracking duty hours.
- Show respect, compassion, integrity and ongoing professional development.
- Determine psychosocial issues that complicate care, especially as it relates to the possibility of patient history of physical or sexual abuse and the diagnosis of nonepileptic seizures.
- Be punctual and appropriately attired.
- Learn ethical, regulatory, and legal aspects of care, including the difference between standard and investigational treatments.
- Demonstrate sensitivity to the personal, cultural, and religious values that influence patients’ medical decisions in the context of the wide spectrum of neurological conditions, including end-of-life issues.
- Promptly attend case conferences and didactic sessions.
Systems-Based Practice
Goals
The resident recognizes that he/she is part of a large and intricate health system that has implications for his/her ability to care for patients and impacts upon his/her patients’ human needs and financial resources.
Objectives
Residents will:
- Learn how to manage the time pressures of outpatient practice while delivering tertiary-level care.
- Learn how to perform efficient outpatient evaluations and appropriately utilize ancillary services.
- Become proficient in the use of the UW Epic electronic record and the VA CPRS systems.
- Learn how the health care system functions, especially as relevant to the patient with neurologic disease.
