Patient Demographics and Socioeconomic Characteristics of an Ambulatory Care Clinic Served by a University PCCM Training Program.
OBJECTIVE
Continuity clinics are an important aspect of pulmonary medicine fellowship training. We provide a description of a pulmonary outpatient clinic in an inner city, county-owned, university-affiliated hospital.


METHODS
This is a descriptive study of administrative data on consecutive patient visits to the University of Tennessee Regional One Health at Memphis ambulatory clinic (Medplex) between January 2000 and August 2006. We describe demographics, socioeconomic characteristics, and the frequency of a pulmonary diagnosis of the outpatient population served by our training program. Continuous data were described by mean ± standard deviations and categorical data were described by percentage.


RESULTS
The dataset included 2549 patients, 81% were African American with a mean age of 48.7 ± 13.7, 64.4% were women. Female/male body mass index was 34.6 ± 11.6 vs. 29.2 ± 10.3. Tenncare (Medicaid) covered 59.6 % of patients, whereas 11.1% were uninsured.


CONCLUSIONS
We provide evidence that one clinical setting may not be enough exposure to the entire lung pathology for pulmonary trainees. There is a need for further, larger, and prospective data collections to evaluate and guide changes regarding the structure of training programs.
From the Division of Pulmonary, Critical Care, and Sleep Medicine, Department of Medicine, University of Tennessee Health Science Center, College of Medicine at Memphis.
Amado X
AX
Freire
From the Division of Pulmonary, Critical Care, and Sleep Medicine, Department of Medicine, University of Tennessee Health Science Center, College of Medicine at Memphis.
Shehab F
SF
Mohamed
From the Division of Pulmonary, Critical Care, and Sleep Medicine, Department of Medicine, University of Tennessee Health Science Center, College of Medicine at Memphis.
Luis C
LC
Murillo
From the Division of Pulmonary, Critical Care, and Sleep Medicine, Department of Medicine, University of Tennessee Health Science Center, College of Medicine at Memphis.
Ivan H
IH
Romero-Legro
From the Division of Pulmonary, Critical Care, and Sleep Medicine, Department of Medicine, University of Tennessee Health Science Center, College of Medicine at Memphis.
Muthiah P
MP
Muthiah
D000328:Adult; D005260:Female; D006785:Hospitals, University; D006801:Humans; D008171:Lung Diseases / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000628:therapy*; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D010044:Outpatient Clinics, Hospital / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D015272:Pulmonary Medicine / Q000193:education*; D012959:Socioeconomic Factors; D013714:Tennessee; D019037:Urban Health Services