Family Medicine Interest Group

The Family Medicine Interest Group provides a forum for exposure to this generalist specialty and issues pertinent to family medicine. Through club sponsored speakers and activities students can learn about topics not addressed in other parts of their medical education.

The Family Medicine Interest Group is open to all SUNY Downstate students.

The Primary Care Day Wellness Festival is a nationwide event to draw attention to the role and importance of primary care and its providers. The community is invited to a health fair with screenings and information on a wide variety of topics including hypertension, pre-natal care, lead poisoning, and smoking cessation. Booths are planned, created, and staffed by students with faculty support. This event is co-sponsored with several other student organizations including AMSA, Students for Social Responsibility, AMWA, and SUNY for Choice. In preparation for Primary Care Day, students will learn, from third and fourth year students and faculty members, to take blood pressure, give intra-muscular injections, perform glucose screenings, perform visual screening, and do screening interviews.

At our monthly speaker series, a variety of topics are addressed by invited speakers including Family Practice residency training, incorporating alternative therapies into allopathic medicine, screening for domestic violence, and interacting with pharmaceutical sales representatives. These informal gatherings are designed to let students explore topics of interest and usually include dinner.

Additionally, we sponsor a student panel discussion, where panels of students from the various colleges discuss their training, role in health care, and their interactions with other health care professionals to educate their fellow students. Faculty members support the student panelists and lend their perspective.

Students are given opportunities and encouraged to attend State/National Academy of Family Physicians meetings, meet family physicians and other students interested in family medicine. Club funds are sometimes available to help defray travel expenses.