With the initiation of formal training in general practice dating back to 1938, Santa Rosa Family Medicine Residency has an established tradition of excellent training with the strong support of community family physicians and specialists alike. Many of the graduates of the residency program have settled in the area and have become active teachers in the program, as well as leaders in the medical community.

In the years following the gold rush and the civil war, Sonoma County needed a center for the care of the indigent. In its early years the “county” hospital provided care for the recent immigrants and the poor and served as a tuberculosis asylum. The early 1900’s brought interns to the hospital to provide inexpensive care for the patient population. By 1938, a nationally renowned two-year general internship was formally established at Community Hospital of Santa Rosa.

In 1968, the program became affiliated with what has since become the Department of Family and Community Medicine at the University of California in San Francisco. The university provides additional teaching resources, including visiting faculty for grand rounds presentations, resources for research projects, and university recognition for faculty and residents. In 1972, with the formal acknowledgment of Family Medicine as a specialty, the program became a Family Medicine residency. Since that time, it has achieved national recognition for its outstanding work in preparing family physicians to enter the full spectrum of practice.

In March of 1996 Sutter Health leased Santa Rosa Community Hospital from the County and assumed its management as well as management of the residency. For a decade, Sutter supported the residency in its consistent excellence and provision of care of the county’s marginalized population.

Last year marked a milestone development, the initiation of the Santa Rosa Family Medicine Residency Consortium as the sponsor of the residency program. The model of a consortium of medical partners builds a flexible foundation for the residency to maneuver in the midst of an ever-changing national health care system. The consortium model also spreads the burden of the care of uninsured and underinsured across all the health care stakeholders in Sonoma County.

Currently, there are 36 family medicine residents at the Santa Rosa Family Medicine Residency. The residents are graduates of medical schools throughout the United States and overseas. The teaching staff is composed of over 200 full-time, part-time, and volunteer instructors. This includes family physicians, geriatricians, pediatricians, coordinators of all major inpatient services and outpatient specialty clinics, many community-based family physicians, several psychologists, family nurse practitioners, and certified nurse midwives.

The program prepares graduates for certification by the American Board of Family Medicine and is accredited by the Accreditation Council on Graduate Medical Education.