We, the students and graduates of Yale School of Medicine, petition the medical school administration and clerkship directors to:

Preserve Wednesday Evening Clinic and HAVEN Free Clinic as options for fulfillment of the requirements of the Integrated Primary Care/Psychiatry Clerkship

Longitudinal primary care experiences provide a level of responsibility for patient care unparalleled elsewhere in our medical school curriculum. Such integrated, longitudinal experiences are rare in American medical education and should be preserved at Yale.

Wednesday Evening Clinic and HAVEN serve patient populations that demonstrate the complex interactions between medical illnesses, mental health, and their respective psychosocial contributors. Students develop therapeutic relationships with patients over the course of at least one year, and in doing so appreciate longitudinal developments in the course of chronic disease and witness the short- and long-term effects of their treatment recommendations.

These clinics represent a unique opportunity to develop relationships with mentors who value patient-centered care and social justice, and who can provide longitudinal guidance in the transition from students of medicine to practitioners of medicine.

It would be a tremendous loss to our education and community for these decades-old and deeply beloved institutions, which provide rigorous longitudinal training in the values and practice of primary care, to be omitted from a new curriculum that emphasizes such integrated clinical experiences. Without integration into the new curriculum, Wednesday Evening Clinic and HAVEN will no longer be able to remain open, and an opportunity for service and learning for our medical students will be lost.

We ask that the Wednesday Evening Clinic and the HAVEN Free Clinic be preserved as options for fulfillment of the requirements of the Integrated Primary Care/Psychiatry Clerkship within the new curriculum.