Duke Primary Care Leadership Track

MD/Primary Care Leadership Track

Imagine seeing your own patients month after month and partnering with them through their health care experiences. Imagine being an advocate for your patient as they go to a surgery or therapy session, witnessing medicine from the patient’s perspective. Imagine working with community teams to provide needed care. Now imagine this type of patient-centered learning in a place like Duke with a dynamic student body and a world-class faculty. Patient-centered learning is the essence of the Primary Care Leadership Track at Duke.

Duke School of Medicine has created the Primary Care Leadership Track (PCLT) to train students to become primary care leaders. This project builds on a longstanding partnership between Duke and the Durham community to understand the causes of health disparities, create a strong research focus on community engagement, and learn how to redesign clinical programs to better serve patient needs at the individual and population level.

Students will learn about medicine through the eyes of their patients and about community health from the perspective of the Durham community. The PCLT is for students who want to make a difference in primary care, our health care system, and how we work with of our patients and our communities to improve health.

PCLT students sign a letter of intent to pursue a career in primary care and receive a scholarship of $10,000 per year. This reverts to a loan if the student enters a non-primary care field.