The integration of the student into ambulatory primary care: a decade of experience.

This paper presents a functioning model for interfacing health care delivery and medical education. The Community Health Center (CHC) of the University of Illinois College of Medicine-Rockford (UICOM-R) program is an instructive solution to many of the present and anticipated needs identified in undergraduate medical education. In this discussion the CHC program is summarized relative to its personnel, economic standing, and curricular objectives and policies. The views and experiences of students, faculty, and patients relative to the program are presented. At a time when the future of medical education is so closely tied to the cost of health care delivery, and there is a call for "retooling" academic programs, the Rockford program may provide a model for the education of physicians for the twenty-first century.