

The 40 interactive virtual patient cases in AquiferSM Family Medicine deliver on the learning objectives of the Society of Teachers of Family Medicine’s (STFM) clerkship curriculum, powered by AqueductSM, Aquifer’s teaching and learning platform.
Overview
Aquifer Family Medicine (formerly fmCASES) builds clinical competency, fills educational gaps, and helps instill the core values and attitudes of family medicine. The course fosters self-directed and independent study, develops clinical problem-solving skills, and teaches an evidence-based, patient-centered approach to patient care.
- Created for educators, by educators, to cover the full range of STFM curriculum
- Available for institutional subscription or for direct purchase by individual subscribers
- Access to Aquifer Calibrate: Transformative Assessments for Clinical Learning Mastery, our innovative system for formative assessment, available with your 2023-24 subscription
- Proven pedagogy that standardizes experiences—overcoming geography, seasonality, and accessibility
- Evidence-based, peer-reviewed, and continuously updated content
- Self-assessment questions emphasize key content and enable students to test their knowledge and skills
- A wealth of source material, tools, and full references in each case
- Delivered via the Aqueduct teaching and learning platform, which includes user management options, easy reporting on student progress and course usage, plus tools for creating custom courses to match a specific curriculum
- Access to Aquifer Calibrate: Transformative Assessments for Clinical Learning Mastery, our innovative system for formative assessment, available to Aquifer 2022-23 Curricular Partners
This course covers the complete STFM Family Medicine Clerkship Curriculum. Course content includes five Aquifer Pediatrics cases and two Aquifer Internal Medicine cases to help cover the full range of family medicine learning objectives.
Self Assessment Questions, included with the course content, are a valuable component of the learning and have been shown to improve student performance on exams (Seagrave et al, 2016).
Aquifer Family Medicine can be used by third-year medical students, Physician Assistant students, and Nurse Practitioner students as a complement to a clerkship or course on family medicine.
Research has shown that students who complete more cases perform better on the Aquifer Family Medicine exam (Chessman et al, 2013). Even if you aren’t requiring all 40 cases, we recommend encouraging your students to complete as many cases as possible.
Aquifer Calibrate, an innovative system for formative assessments, is in development for Aquifer Family Medicine. The new assessments will combine the concepts of test-enhanced learning and distributed practice to facilitate efficient study planning and self-directed learning for students, and identify at-risk students and curricular gaps for faculty.
Our current 100-question summative multiple-choice exam will continue to be available through June 2023.Â
Aquifer’s online, validated summative exam is included with your Aquifer Family Medicine course subscription. Unlike the NMBE, our 100-item, multiple-choice exam was created by Society of Teachers of Family Medicine (STFM) educators as an assessment tool based specifically on the Family Medicine clerkship curriculum.
The exam is delivered in a secure browser and accompanied by student assessment reports with individual and class data. It can be used to replace or enhance an existing comprehensive assessment or to remediate students. The exam has also been found to improve NBME performance when used as a pre-test (Nguyen 2018).
A study of 130 medical students at one institution found the percent correct on the Aquifer Family Medicine and NBME examinations were highly correlated (Pearson correlation coefficient = 0.607). Using linear regression, performance on the Aquifer Family Medicine exam was a very strong positive predictor of subsequent NBME scores (p=.00000000000002) (Sussman, 2012).
Family Medicine 01: 45-year-old female wellness visit
Family Medicine 02: 55-year-old male wellness visit
Family Medicine 03: 65-year-old female with insomnia
Family Medicine 04: 19-year-old female with sports injury
Family Medicine 05: 30-year-old female with palpitations
Family Medicine 06: 57-year-old female diabetes care visit
Family Medicine 07: 53-year-old male with leg swelling
Family Medicine 08: 54-year-old male with elevated blood pressure
Family Medicine 09: 50-year-old female with palpitations
Family Medicine 10: 45-year-old male with low back pain
Family Medicine 11: 74-year-old female with knee pain
Family Medicine 12: 16-year-old female with vaginal bleeding and UCG
Family Medicine 13: 40-year-old male with a persistent cough
Family Medicine 14: 35-year-old female with missed period
Family Medicine 15: 42-year-old male with right upper quadrant pain
Family Medicine 16: 68-year-old male with skin lesion
Family Medicine 17: 55-year-old post-menopausal female with vaginal bleeding
Family Medicine 18: 24-year-old female with headaches
Family Medicine 19: 39-year-old male with epigastric pain
Family Medicine 20: 28-year-old female with abdominal pain
Family Medicine 21: 12-year-old female with fever
Family Medicine 22: 70-year-old male with new-onset unilateral weakness
Family Medicine 23: 5-year-old female with sore throat
Family Medicine 24: 4-week-old female with fussiness
Family Medicine 25: 38-year-old male with shoulder pain
Family Medicine 26: 55-year-old male with fatigue
Family Medicine 27: 17-year-old male with groin pain
Family Medicine 28: 58-year-old male with shortness of breath
Family Medicine 29: 72-year-old male with dementia
Family Medicine 30: 27-year-old female labor and delivery
Family Medicine 31: 66-year-old female with shortness of breath
Family Medicine 32: 33-year-old female with painful periods
Family Medicine 33: 28-year-old female with dizziness
Pediatrics 01: Newborn male infant evaluation and care
Pediatrics 02: Infant female well-child visits (2, 6, and 9 months)
Pediatrics 03: 3-year-old male well-child visit
Pediatrics 04: 8-year-old male well-child check
Pediatrics 13: 6-year-old female with chronic cough
Internal Medicine 02: 60-year-old female with episodic chest discomfort
Internal Medicine 16: 45-year-old male with obesity
From Our Cases

User Story
Learn how Aquifer Family Medicine can benefit medical students and faculty in your program:
Academic Presentation
Aligning the National Clerkship Curriculum, the NBME, and Aquifer Family Medicine’s Learning Objectives for Enhanced Curricular Mapping
From the Society of Teachers of Family Medicine Medical Student Education Conference 2021: