APP Primary Care Fellowship

What is the APP Primary Care Fellowship?

From routine wellness care and sick visits to chronic disease management and acute care follow-up, the practice of primary care medicine requires a collaborative approach to patient care. To deliver complex, comprehensive care, providers must rely on a broad set of skills and the precise integration of behavioral and social sciences and the ability to coordinate care with specialists. This rapidly growing specialty is in need of skilled nurse practitioners (NPs) and physician assistants (PAs) trained to prevent, diagnose and treat a wide variety of pathologies in patients of all ages.

The Lee Physician Group (LPG) Advanced Practice Provider (APP) Fellowship in Primary Care Medicine is a 12-month program designed to foster the growth and development of the next generation of skilled nurse practitioners and physician assistants to provide high quality care while becoming leaders in healthcare delivery and patient advocacy.

Interested APPs must have appropriate certification: PAs must be NCCPA certified, APRNs must be appropriately certified to treat ambulatory patients in the primary care setting (i.e. Family Nurse Practitioner, Adult-Gerontology Primary Care Nurse Practitioner, etc).

Lee Health Advanced Practice Provider Fellowship Program is accredited as an Advanced Practice Provider Fellowship Program by the American Nurses Credentialing Center’s Commission on Accreditation in Practice Transition Programs.

The current sites included in this accreditation designation are:

Lee Community Healthcare Inc. - North Fort Myers
Gulf Coast Medical Center
HealthPark Medical Center

The current workplace settings included in this accreditation designation are:

Surgical
Critical Care
Primary Care

Online Application for Lee Health's APP Primary Care Fellowship

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Are you ready to apply to our APP Primary Care Fellowship? Fill out our online application now! For further details, please contact: APPfellowship@leehealth.org (link opens in a new window)

What is the curriculum for the APP Primary Care Fellowship?

The APP Primary Care Fellowship at Lee Health provides a robust infrastructure to expand the knowledge, skills, and attitudes required to move the APP from entry-level competence toward proficiency and expertise.

The program curriculum encompasses Organizational Enculturation, Practice-Based Learning, peer support, and personalized mentoring.

Organizational Enculturation topics facilitate the assimilation of the APP Fellow into the culture, practices, and values of Lee Health and the APP’s profession.

Practice-Based Learning. This includes concepts intended to facilitate competence in the standards of practice and professional performance of the APP Fellow. These are introduced as lecture topics and are reinforced by clinical mentors in practice settings. During Academic Conference Days, the APP Fellow presents cases with explicit examples of how these concepts have been applied in the practice setting. These topics include: Well-being & Burnout, Professionalism, Practice Efficiency, Effective Communication, Critical thinking, Principles of Medical Ethics, Interprofessional teaming, Social determinants of health, and Billing Compliance.

APP Fellows will participate in supervised direct patient care activities as assigned by their preceptor(s) at the assigned primary care practice. This includes having experiences with patients in the primary care setting seeking care for annual wellness visits, chronic disease management, sick visits, follow up from hospitalization, follow up from ER visits, and others. Many patients have multiple chronic diseases. The fellow starts with lower patient volumes early in the fellowship, increasing steadily as the fellowship progresses.

What elective rotations are offered to APP Primary Care fellows?

Elective rotations are meant to enhance the education of the fellow, mainly to address learning gaps and weaknesses. These experiences may also be used to explore a possible opportunity post-fellowship, or to facilitate a transition to the same. They may be hands-on or shadowing experiences. Elective rotations must contribute to the primary goals of the fellowship and may vary in frequency and length, on a case-by-case basis, depending on multiple factors.

Fellow Responsibilities Will Include:

Work clinic days as assigned
Complete online educational modules as assigned
Prepare and deliver regular didactic presentations on topics in primary care
Participate in research activities as directed, such as quality improvement projects
Adhere to the standard of care in clinical practice
Attend weekly academic conferences (typically on Thursday afternoons)
Participate in professional development through curriculum, development, research and continuing education opportunities