Family Medicine Education Programs

Physician educators in the IU School of Medicine Department of Family Medicine participate in the training of medical students as well as resident physicians and fellows as they pursue a career as a family medicine physicians. This specialty area of medicine integrates care for patients of all genders and every age and advocates for the patient in a complex health care system. Family medicine physicians provide the majority of care for America’s underserved rural and urban populations.

As part of the Department of Family Medicine at IU School of Medicine, the Indiana Area Health Education Center Network is improving community health by recruiting, educating and retaining health care professionals for underserved patient populations in Indiana.

MD Program

The medical student education program provides MD students opportunities to work side-by-side with practicing physicians in urban cities, small towns and rural areas throughout Indiana.

Residency Program

The three-year Family Medicine Residency trains doctors to provide community care through practical experiences in diverse settings such as clinics, hospitals and even patient homes.

Fellowship Training

Participants in the Primary Care Sports Medicine Fellowship program train in a variety of settings with leaders in this field of medicine for work in primary care sports medicine.

Indiana Area Health Education Centers Network

The Indiana Area Health Education Centers Network (AHEC) helps health care professionals throughout Indiana to better educate citizens about health problems and issues and to provide quality service.

Explore AHEC

Working as Family Medicine Physician

Family physicians are uniquely trained to provide comprehensive care for acute and chronic conditions as well as wellness care and disease prevention for all patient types—across age, gender and other demographic categories. Family physicians perform a variety of procedures and manage care through collaboration with other medical specialties

Most family physicians are in clinical practice and provide care in ambulatory settings and hospitals, but with a broad scope of training focused on patient-centered care in the context of families and communities and an understanding of how health systems work, family physicians can adapt to any health care location and setting.

Teaching is important to family physicians; many are involved with training medical students and residents in clinical practices. Some family physicians choose primary careers in academic settings, such as residency programs or large academic health centers. Some are research scientists, and others participate in practice-based research by contributing data to important research questions.

The range of career options within family medicine is broad and includes geriatrics, adolescent medicine, hospice and palliative care, pain medicine, sleep medicine, emergency medicine and urgent care, hospitalist medicine, sports medicine, public health, international medicine, and wilderness medicine.

What is Family Medicine?

For more information about the specialty of family medicine and what it’s like to work as a family medicine physician, explore the Family Medicine FAQ.