February 28, 2013 – Virginia Garcia Memorial Health Center is one of only six community health centers around the country participating in the first-ever multi-state medical residency program. The program, which will focus on the much-needed primary care specialty of family medicine, will place up to a total of 29 medical school graduates per year over three years (87 graduates) at community health centers in at-risk communities around the country. A.T. Still University of Health Sciences’ School of Osteopathic Medicine in Arizona (Mesa, AZ) and The Wright Center for Graduate Medical Education (Scranton, PA) developed and will run the program, which has been funded by a $4 million grant from the U.S. Health Resources and Services Administration.
The new program is a potential model for residency programs across the country in that it addresses two of the nation’s most pressing healthcare challenges — the shortage of primary care physicians trained to work with America’s most vulnerable populations and the potential changes in federal funding which may leave thousands of new doctors without a place to complete their training.
The program’s objective is to create a pipeline of doctors trained to work with underserved rural and urban populations and in team-based practices that emphasize keeping entire communities healthy. With research showing that new doctors tend to practice in the communities where they have done their residencies, there is a glaring need to create opportunities for residents to train in these communities.
Gil Muñoz, CEO of Virginia Garcia Memorial Health Center, said: “Community health centers provide rich educational experiences for those passionate about the health of America’s most vulnerable citizens. We at Virginia Garcia are thrilled to be among those giving the incoming A.T. Still-Wright Center residents an opportunity to enhance their training – not only by serving a diverse patient community, but also by being part of a medical model that is redefining the way health care is delivered in the United States.”
Unlike most residency programs, which both take place in and are managed by individual hospitals or medical centers, the Wright Center-ATSU collaboration will be a multi-state but centrally run effort spread among healthcare organizations in five states — Arizona, Ohio, Oregon, New York and Washington – and the District of Columbia. The residency program will deliver an innovative curriculum with a strong community focus combined with comprehensive training and unique opportunities for participants.
Applications for the new residency program are currently being reviewed. The 29 residents chosen to participate in the first year of the national family-medicine residency program will be divided among six community health centers located in medically underserved areas. In addition to the Virginia Garcia Memorial Health Center, the sites are the El Rio Community Health Center (Tucson, AZ), Lutheran Family Health Centers (Brooklyn, NY), HealthSource of Ohio (Milford, OH), HealthPoint (Renton, WA) and Unity Health Care (Washington, DC).
Said Thomas McWilliams, DO, Associate Dean for Graduate Medical Education at A. T. Still University of Health Sciences’ School of Osteopathic Medicine in Arizona (ATSU-SOMA), who helped develop the program, “Residents will receive the benefits of modern ambulatory training coupled with carefully selected hospital training experiences using an innovative, nationally-accredited residency curriculum led and supervised by The Wright Center and A. T. Still University.”
He continued, "These residencies will serve as a model for a new paradigm for training physicians to function effectively within a rapidly evolving healthcare system. Physicians trained in these programs will become leaders in shaping medicine in this country and will be a force to improve the health of individual patients as well as the overall health of their communities.”
Said Wright Center President and CEO Linda Thomas-Hemak, MD, “Since 2011, The Wright Center has acted as a teaching health center GME consortium spreading our rich tradition of academic excellence in an educational infrastructure throughout northeasternPennsylvania. We are privileged to have the opportunity — through collaboration with A.T. Still University of Health Sciences’ School of Osteopathic Medicine in Arizona — to nationalize our efforts.”
