LUCENT: Leadership for Urban Primary Care Education and Transformation
Background:
The LUCENT Primary Care Program at the University of Chicago is a multi-disciplinary program that aims to develop effective leaders for primary care transformation in urban communities. Residents and faculty who participate in this program will have expanded ambulatory clinical training, participate in seminars, and lead clinical practice innovation projects. Through the clinical and hands-on project experiences, the program prepares physicians to effectively practice primary care and become leaders in today’s ongoing transformation of primary care.
LUCENT residents will have expanded ambulatory time built into their schedules. Included in this is the opportunity to explore clinic settings outside of the University of Chicago system, including (but not limited to) ACCESS, Howard Brown, Cook County/prison health, and Oak Street Health. LUCENT residents have the opportunity to select addition ambulatory focused clinics within the University of Chicago that fit their interests. Residents also participate in dedicated LUCENT seminars and practice innovation projects (PIP). This experience can be tailored to fit each LUCENT resident’s need and interest.
Mission:
LUCENT aims to provide residents and faculty in Internal Medicine, Pediatrics, Medicine/Pediatrics, and Family Medicine with the necessary knowledge and skills to become leaders and transform primary care in urban, underserved settings.
Leaders:
- Dr. Deborah Burnet (Vice Chair for Faculty Development, Department of Medicine)
- Dr. Mim Ari (Department of Medicine)
- Dr. Morgan Ealey (LUCENT Project Manager)
- Email address: lucent@bsd.uchicago.edu
Core Faculty:
- Dr. Jen Rusiecki (Department of Medicine)
- Dr. Anna Volerman (Department of Medicine)
Advisors:
- IM Program Director: Dr. John McConville
- IM Associate Program Director- Ambulatory: Dr. Julie Oyler
- IM Ambulatory Chief Resident
Opportunity:
The LUCENT program provides the opportunity for a select number of residents to complete a two year program in residency with expanded ambulatory training
Applications:
Due Feb 1 annually (of applicant’s intern year). The application includes the following information:
- Completed Application
- Letter of Recommendation from PD
- Personal Statement
- Curriculum Vitae
*Of note, due to scheduling restraints, there is a cap of at most four IM residents per year, six in total across PGY2 and 3 combined. The cap is in place to maintain inpatient schedules. If there are an extensive number of residents within the same firm, there may need to be firm rearrangements during the subsequent academic year.
Graduates:
- 2018: Hannah Wenger, Rebecca Harris
- 2019: Mike Cheng
- 2020: Bonnie Diep
- 2021: Julia Nath
- 2023: Molly Leavitt, Michael Lourie, Kevin Pearlman, Samuel Trump
Practice Innovation Projects (2022 – 2023):
- Michael Lourie and Collin Hanson — We are working on a quality improvement project to integrate Healthcare Power of Attorney (HC-POA) documentation into the flow of an ambulatory appointment for primary care clinics at the University of Chicago. This project was awarded institutional support from the Trust in Practice/Choosing Wisely Challenge through the Healthcare Science Delivery & Innovation office.
- Hannah Pursley — The project I’m working on is improving the resident handoff system between blocks. Since we are in a block system, we often see our co-residents’ patients due to scheduling difficulties; however, which patients are following up from a colleague’s clinic and the reason for follow up are often not clearly communicated. I am working on a project to survey my peers on aspects of the handoff process that could improve, and plan to implement these ideas in our PCG clinic system.
- Samuel Trump — My project aims to increase the amount of Medicare Annual Wellness Visits completed by residents in PCG by teaching residents via training sessions, PDFs, and videos. We’ll also then be collecting information from the health risk assessment portion of AWV to guide future studies and interventions.
- Molly Leavitt — My LUCENT research focuses on reducing anti-fat bias in medicine. Physicians and medical trainees across the board have implicit and explicit bias against patients with larger bodies, which can significantly impact care they provide. For this project, we developed a brief intervention on weight stigma for internal medicine residents. The goal of this intervention is to educate about the impact of weight bias in medicine and to get participants to challenge their own biases. Fifty residents have participated so far, with promising improvements in their explicit bias scales, and I am hoping to have more residents participate this year.
Previous Practice Innovation Projects:
2018
- Hannah Wenger – Transgender healthcare policy in religious-affiliated hospitals
- Rebecca Harris – Creating and implementing a dermatology curriculum for primary care physicians & perceptions of and participation in unprofessional behaviors in in outpatient clinic throughout residency
2019
- Mike Cheng – High value radiological exam ordering lecture series
2020
- Bonnie Diep – De-prescribing proton pump inhibitors in primary care
2021
- Julia Nath – Providing BP cuffs to improve virtual health care/chronic disease care and other hypertension improvement work
2023
- Molly Leavitt – reducing anti-fat bias in medicine
- Michael Lourie – integrating Healthcare Power of Attorney (HC-POA) documentation into the flow of ambulatory appointments
- Kevin Pearlman – improving combination anti-hypertensive medication usage
- Samuel Trump – increasing Medicare Annual Wellness Visits completed by residents
Find out more at: http://lucent.uchicago.edu/