Penn State Hershey
        Medical Education

Primary Care Competencies

Understand the Practice of Primary Care

1. Provide personal care for individuals and families as the physician of first contact and continuing care in health as well as in illness.
2. Assess and manage acute and chronic medical problems frequently encountered in the community.
3. Provide anticipatory health care using education, risk reduction, and health enhancement strategies.
4. Provide continuous as well as episodic health care, not limited by a specific disease, patient characteristics, or setting of the patient encounter.
5. Provide and coordinate comprehensive care of complex and severe problems using biomedical, social, personal, economic, and community resources, including consultation and referral.
6. Establish effective physician-patient relationships by using appropriate interpersonal communication skills to provide quality health care.