Assignment of Patients

Clinic administrative staff do not make medical triage decisions. As supervisors review patient files, they may reassign patients based on the difficulty of presenting complaints, intern caseloads and intern skill levels.

When students begin their supervised clinical internship in Trimesters 5 and 6, they will receive a maximum of two patients per 4-hour clinic shift with appointments scheduled for 90 minutes.

In Trimesters 7, 8 and 9 interns are expected to increase their patient loads each clinical shift. Students are encouraged to treat 3 patients, with the option to treat four with supervisor approval.

It is understood that some patients take longer than others to triage, diagnose, and treat. Students are also learning skills of time management, and follow-up care and although professionals make every effort to meet a patient’s needs, sometimes it is necessary to ask patients to return as part of a longer term treatment plan. While it is important to understand how to treat returning patients within a one-hour appointment patients should also be encouraged to return for subsequent visits if the treatment plan calls for it.