What are the strong points of the residency?

• Our Family Medicine identity: We are one of the oldest full-spectrum Family Medicine programs in the country, one of the strongest, an unopposed residency, the only training program in town, and a centerpiece of Sonoma County healthcare. The program allows residents to experience and identify with what it means to be a full spectrum family physician. The graduates of our program are prepared to practice anywhere in the world (and many do). Local alumnae include the current Sonoma County Public Health Officer, founders and directors of three community health centers, chiefs of staff of two major bed hospitals and the President of the California Academy of Family Physicians.
• Our team: Not only do we attract the best and brightest residents, but also, they join the talented and dedicated faculty already involved and engaged in the residency. This makes for an unselfish collaboration of outstanding residents, faculty, staff and the many graduates who have stayed to practice here. Our residents form bonds that endure for the rest of their lives.
• Commitment to the underserved: We draw residents and faculty who are committed to providing care for those who need it most. We fight for social justice both locally and globally.
• Balance: We have an understanding of the importance of balance between work, education and life outside of medicine.  We provide protected opportunity for personal and professional development throughout residency and strive to model those lifelong values to all parts of the program.  We also encourage regular intervals spent in the unrivaled natural beauty of Sonoma County, California.

What is new and innovative at the residency?

• Leadership and Professional Development curriculum
• Community-based consortium sponsorship that includes: the three major community hospitals, the public health department, a community health center, the county, and UCSF School of Medicine
• Family practice center operated as a community health center
• Broad array of international medicine elective experiences
• Resident-driven curriculum
• Group visits: wellness clinic, diabetes clinic in English, Laotian, Cambodian, and Spanish, and lactation classes in Spanish, with expansion to chronic pain, exercise, and prenatal care in the near future
• Clinic for community access to prenatal care
• Weekly electronic clinical EBM newsletter
• Community-wide faculty development program
• Close relationship with public health and HIV treatment programs
• Integrative medicine grant for curriculum development
• Cultural competency curriculum
• Community Health Worker mentorship program
• Multi-specialty experiences in:
• Dementia clinic
• Headache clinic
• Pain management

What makes you different from other California Family Medicine Residency Programs?

• Widely acknowledged as central to the past, present, and future of health care in Sonoma County
• Nearly 70 years of history in training primary care physicians with over half remaining in Sonoma County to practice
• Environment of humanism & social justice
• Full-spectrum reproductive health, including high risk maternity care, medical and surgical abortion
• Family medicine centered, full-spectrum, inpatient medical care
• Open approach to alternative methods of health care
• Resident-driven and highly responsive to resident input
• Focus and opportunities in international medicine
• Nationally recognized Balint program
• Five months of elective time
• Personal & professional development groups
• Family physicians teaching family physicians
• Beauty of the region
• Best pinot noirs this side of Burgundy (and some better)
• Wild turkeys and deer roaming the parking lot

What does your program do for fun?

We walk with each other in this intense period of personal growth.  We have “midnight dance jam”.  We bake scones, muffins, and waffles to ease the pain of a heavy night on call.  We hike. We camp. We cook. We garden. We knit. We play poker. We golf. We surf.  We play tennis.  We ride horses. We eat good food.  We drink good beer and wine.  We make music. We listen to each other’s poetry.  We read. We cry.  We argue.  We laugh.  Mostly, we act as a family.

What community projects is your program involved in?

Our innovative three-year community medicine curriculum, entitled Leadership and Professional Development, provides residents with multiple community opportunities.  Residents serve at existing sites and create their own group and individual service projects. Residents are trained in the philosophy of community-oriented primary care, to fundraise for small projects, and to be leaders and advocates in their future communities.

Examples of current site experiences:

• Teaching health topics in local high schools for teen mothers
• Teaching at a day program for homeless women and children
• Medical visits at a high school clinic
• Medical visits at local free clinics
• Health care for pregnant women coordinated with public health
• Mentoring for high school and junior college students interested in careers in health-related fields
• Diabetes Bridge Clinic- a follow-up clinic for unassigned and uninsured patients with newly diagnosed diabetes

Examples of current and possible individual/group projects:

• Care of the transgender individual
• Care of the homeless of Sonoma County
• Care of the patient with chronic pain
• Pairing of residents with community health workers in certificate program at the local junior college
• Coordinating the annual Santa Rosa Latino Health Conference
• Annual R1 community project