Noon Conference Series
At O’Connor we supplement our practical learning with a daily noon conference. The noon conference is 45 minutes in length on most days with two hour sessions twice per month. The daily noon conference is a required part of our education and is eagerly attended by both faculty, residents and medical students. Participants enjoy speakers from range of specialties including neonatology to neurosurgery and everything in between.
In order to insure every resident has exposure to lectures on essential family medicine core topics several lecture series have been developed. Examples of these include: dermatology, ICU, pediatrics, ER, sports medicine, quality improvement, journal club, practice management, behavioral science, and case conferences. The frequency of the series depends on the topic. Other conferences are tracked with core topics repeated every approximately every 18 months.
Residents gain leadership and help continually improve the curriculum, with two residents per year taking on the responsibility of scheduling noon conferences. These residents have the opportunity to work within the dynamic portion of the conference schedule to implement changes when necessary based on resident and faculty feedback.
Sample Noon Conference Schedule (From April 2010)
| Monday | Tuesday | Wednesday | Thursday | Friday |
| Resident Meeting | Behavioral Science: Child Psychiatry | |||
| Sports Medicine: Neck Pain | CME: Sepsis | Tuberculosis | Resident/Faculty Meeting | Behavioral Science: Balint Group |
| Resident Support Group | Pediatrics Series | Childhood Obesity (2 hour session) | Colpscopy | Case Conference |
| Diabetic Ketoacidosis | CME | Common Hand Problems | Family Medicine Case Review | ICU Lecture Series: ABG |
| M&M | Journal Club | The Difficult Patient (2 hour session) | Medicine Team Lunch | Diagnosis/ Treatment of Venous Insufficiency |
Behavioral Science Curriculum
Our behavioral science curriculum is led by our Behavioral Science Faculty, Robin Beresford, Frances Respicio, and Kathy Mullins and Greg Sazima. In addition to the noon conference series residents get yearly feedback on clinical style by Robin Beresford, and participate in a series of workshops:
| First Year | Second Year | Third Year |
| Families I | Families II | Cross Cultural Awareness, Integrating Traditional Health Beliefs with Western Medicine |
| Interviewing skills/Counseling interventions | Behavior Change and Health Promotion (two sessions) | Domestic Violence II |
| Crisis Intervention, Grief Reactions, Death and Dying | Human Sexuality II | Chronic Disease |
| Taking a Sexual History and Assessing High Risk Behavior | Outpatient Management of Substance Abuse | Human Sexuality III |
| Domestic Violence I | Pain Management I | Families III |
| Counseling Interventions II |