Educational Tracks

Starting their second year, residents have the option of joining educational tracks to supplement their residency experience. Interested residents are provided additional workshops, sessions, and rotations to their curriculum. 

Medical Education Track 

The Medical Education track is designed to introduce residents to principles and current trends as well as applications of various learning theories in medical education. All residents in the track will participate in a 2- week elective rotation, complete a mentored medical education capstone project, participate as a facilitator/educator in the Keck School of Medicine curriculum, and be provided direct observation and feedback on their teaching techniques. 

Focuses of the track will be competency-based medical education, facilitating different levels of education from small groups to conferences, providing feedback, creating instructional materials, identifying struggling learners, coaching, and building a teaching philosophy and education portfolio. 

Primary Care Track 

The foremost goal of the primary care track is to teach residents how to deliver the best primary care to their patients by enhancing access to primary care opportunities and specialty clinicians. Primary care track residents which have more outpatient time, following a roughly 3+2 format instead of the typical 3+1 split of inpatient/outpatient rotations. 

Primary care track residents will also have access to exclusive clinical settings including rotations in dermatology, gynecology, orthopedics, ophthalmology, otolaryngology, urology and urgent care. They will work with physical and occupational therapists, registered dietitians, and podiatrists/wound care specialists. Several more focused areas of interest available include substance use disorders, transgender care, and street medicine. Lastly, residents can participate in dedicated outpatient procedure clinics. 

Primary care residents will also have the opportunity to rotate at the Veteran's Administration (VA) outpatient clinic in Downtown Los Angeles, about a 15 minute drive from our main campus in East Los Angeles. Residents will be provided additional exposure to care in a setting unique and different from main campus. 

The culmination of these opportunities and experiences aim to produce a fulfilling career in primary care medicine! 

Lifestyle Medicine Track 

Lifestyle Medicine focuses on using therapeutic lifestyle interventions as a primary modality to prevent, treat, and reverse common chronic conditions using an evidence-based, whole-person based approach. The Lifestyle Medicine Residency Curriculum (LMRC) is a collaborative effort of the American College of Lifestyle Medicine and Loma Linda University to prepare residents to use the 6 pillars of lifestyle medicine- whole-food, plant-predominant diet, physical activity, restorative sleep, stress management, avoidance of risky substances, and positive social connections to care for their patients. 

New to USC as of the 2023 academic year, the LMRC offers a comprehensive, applicable, and flexible curriculum that upon completion of the program, will qualify residents to sit for the American Board of Lifestyle Medicine certification exam.