UCSF Primary Care Medicine: Principles and Practices

Enhance your primary care skills with this comprehensive continuing medical education program, led by Dr. Robert B. Baron and taught by UCSF’s finest instructors. This online CME course covers a broad range of essential topics, including:

• Preventive medicine and cardiovascular risk factor reduction
• Day-to-day clinical problem-solving and chronic disease management
• Women’s health, geriatrics, and behavioral medicine
• Optimal use of diagnostic tests and new medications

This course is designed to help you meet the challenges of health disparities and care for vulnerable and complex patients. Learn how to maximize quality, safety, equity, and value, and discover essential strategies for collaboration with other specialists, inpatient colleagues, and diverse teams of health professionals.

Learning Objectives

By participating in this course, you can expect to improve your skills and strategies in the following areas:

• Understanding the impact of COVID-19 on primary care practice and treating patients with COVID-related conditions
• Implementing new guidelines in office-based preventive medicine
• Managing common office problems, including diabetes, coronary heart disease, and chronic kidney disease
• Diagnosing and treating common specialty problems in neurology, cardiology, and more
• Improving skills in medical documentation to maximize clinical efficiency and quality
• Selecting the best diagnostic tests and enhancing value in medical practice
• Optimizing patient communication and shared decision-making
• Becoming a better clinician and advocate for equitable, patient-centered care

Intended Audience

This course is designed for practicing internists, family practitioners, advanced practice providers, and all other health professionals interested in providing high-quality primary care.

Topics and Speakers

Our expert speakers will cover a range of topics, including:

• Prevention of common infections and best practices in vaccination (Lisa Winston, MD)
• Cervical cancer screening and routine pelvic exams (George F. Sawaya, MD)
• Current challenges in lung disease, including asthma, COPD, and post-COVID sequelae (Lekshmi Santhosh, MD, MAEd)
• Controversies in cancer screening, including colon, breast, lung, and prostate cancer (Judith M. E. Walsh, MD, MPH)
• Assessment of abnormal uterine bleeding and early detection of utine cancer (Sara Whetstone, MD)
• Initial management of common cancers (Sam Brondfield, MD, MA)
• Gynecologic issues in older women, including hot flashes and vaginal dryness (Rebecca Jackson, MD)
• Best practices in addiction medicine for primary care clinicians (Irina (Era) Kryzhanovskaya, MD)
• Current strategies in pre-operative medical evaluation (H. Quinny Cheng, MD)
• Chronic kidney disease and what the generalist needs to know (Michael G. Shlipak, MD, MPH)
• The climate crisis as a health crisis and what health professionals can do (Katherine Gundling, MD)
• Working to cure dementia, from bench to bedside and beyond (Bruce Miller, MD)
• Covid-19: where do we stand, what have we learned, and where are we going? (George Rutherford, III, MD)
• New paradigms in management of heart failure (Mandar Aras, MD, PhD)
• Cardiology for the non-cardiologist, including new innovations and guidelines (Krishan Soni, MD, MBA)
• Health care disparities and systemic racism, before, during, and after COVID (Alicia Fernandez, MD)
• The 2021 CDC STI treatment guidelines, including diagnosis and treatment of osteoporosis (Michael Policar, MD, MPH)
• Management of type 2 diabetes, including medication selection (Robert Rushakoff, MD, MS)
• Best practices in clinical documentation, including charting new waters (Elisabeth Askin, MD)
• Update on the treatment of Parkinson’s disease (Jill Ostrem, MD)
• Managing hypertension in 2021, including conflicting guidelines (Robert B. Baron, MD, MS)

The original release date for this course is December 15, 2021, and credits will expire on December 14, 2024.