• RESIDENCY PROGRAM
  1. Introduction
  2. Admissions & Recruitment
  3. Our Approach
  4. Community Health Center
  5. Rotations
  6. Lecture Curriculum
  7. Minority Caucus
  8. Community Tour
  9. Hospital Services & Benefits
  10. FAQS
  11. Current Resident Bios

• MEDICAL STUDENT PROGRAM

• FAMILY MEDICINE RESOURCES

1. How many faculty members are in your program?
2. What are your graduates doing?
3. What outpatient procedures will I learn?
4. Do you have to speak Spanish?
5. What links are there between your program and the University?
6. What is the call schedule?

How many faculty members are in your program?

Currently in 2009, our program has 18 faculty members: 14 MDs, four of whom also hold Masters in Public Health; a fellowship trained Sports medicine faculty member; a fellowship trained Obstetrical and Family Planning faculty; a CSW; a PhD; and a DrPH. Our faculty members work with our 18 residents in many different capacities, including inpatient rounds, lecture presentations, precepting in clinic, and teaching courses. We have a faculty member trained in social work and family therapy who directs the behavioral science curriculum, a faculty member with a PhD in philosophy who directs our ethics and narrative medicine curricula, and a DrPH who directs our research program. Practice management is overseen by a program graduate experienced in community and private practice. Nursing home experiences are overseen by family physicians providing care at the facilities where residents are assigned to follow patients for the duration of the residency through a team approach to care. Our Sports Medicine faculty member heads the sports medicine and orthopedics rotations and runs the musculoskeletal clinic in the Family Health Center. For more information on faculty members, see "Who We Are" on this website.

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What are your graduates doing?

As of July 2006, our graduates have gone on to diverse positions at the local, national, and international levels. There are six graduates per class.


CLASS OF 2006

1. providing full family medicine care to underserved patients in Brooklyn community
2. geriatrics fellowship
3. academic faculty development fellowship
4. joined Columbia University Medical Center department of surgery wound management team in development of chronic disease management model
5. working with the SouthEastern Alaska Regional Health Consortium (SEARHC), a tribally owned organization in Juneau practicing full spectrum family medicine
6. joined faculty at Oregon Health Sciences University

CLASS OF 2005

1. OB fellowship at Swedish Medical Center in Seattle, WA
2. group practice in New Jersey
3. faculty position at Columbia University Medical Center, focusing on hospital care, obstetrics and women's health
4. working in community health center in a diverse immigrant area of the Lower East Side in Manhattan and supervising medical students
5. faculty appointment at academic program in Seattle, WA

CLASS OF 2004

1. completed family planning fellowship and now family planning faculty at Columbia
2. Yale affiliated physician
3. faculty at Bronx-Lebanon Hospital
4. private practice in Naples, FL
5. Assistant Professor at Baylor College of Medicine in Texas
6. private practice in Riverdale, NY and faculty position at Columbia University Medical Center, focusing on practice management

CLASS OF 2003

1. private practice in Georgia
2. private practice in Pennsylvania
3. Union Health practice, full family medicine in Harlem
4. completed law school at Stanford University
5. faculty at Boston University
6. obtained an MPH as a Family Medicine Faculty Development Fellow, faculty position at Weill Medical College of Cornell University

CLASS OF 2002

1. completed fellowship in complementary and alternative medicine and now private practice in New York City
2. working in the Student Health Services at Columbia University
3. pursuing pathology residency
4. built a new group practice for an underserved Korean population in Queens, NY
5. taking time off to care for young infants
6. completed commitment to practice family medicine for the U.S. Air Force in Italy for four years and now returning to US

CLASS OF 2001

1. works in a group practice, coordinates HIV care, and precepts residents in South Boston
2. works in group practice and precepts residents in Boston
3. Interim Chief Medical Officer of Open Door Family Medical Centers in Westchester, NY
4. United Nations International AIDS committee - NYC & Africa
5. small group practice in New York City
6. obtained MPH as Family Medicine Faculty Development Fellow at Columbia University and now Medical Director in our Family Health Center

CLASS OF 2000

1. emergency medicine practice in rural Virginia
2. founded home-visits medical practice in New Rochelle, NY
3. completed a second residency in radiology
4. group practice in underserved population in Harlem
5. group practice in underserved population in Southwest Florida
6. practicing primary care psychiatrist

CLASS OF 1999

1. group practice in Chinese community of Los Angeles, CA
2. completed fellowship in Child Psychiatry and now sees children at New York Presbyterian Hospital
3. group practice in underserved population in Harlem
4. group practice in rural and suburban upstate New York
5. multi-specialty group practice in San Jose, CA
6. faculty position at Columbia University Medical Center, practicing in underserved population of Washington Heights, NY

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What outpatient procedures will I learn?

Procedures residents learn include minor skin surgery in the Family Health Center (punch and shave biopsies, electrocautery); colposcopy; IUD insertion; endometrial biopsies; circumcision; vaginal deliveries; first assist at Cesarean sections; laceration repair, joint injections; incision and drainage, casting and splinting; and wound debridement. We also provide early medical and surgical abortion training.

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Do you have to speak Spanish?

You do not need to know any Spanish at all, as long as you are excited about learning! Our patient population is 85% Latino, mostly from the Dominican Republic, as well as from Mexico, Puerto Rico, and Central and South America. We also have patients of African, Russian, Jewish, Arabic, and Irish origins, among others. Half of our patients are Spanish-speaking only, and we provide extensive support for residents who are learning Spanish. This includes hospital-wide Spanish lessons during orientation; formal classes and informal practice during our Community Oriented Primary Care month; and weekly after-hours Spanish courses, free of charge to residents and employees. An interpreter is available at the clinic during patient care sessions, and there is also a back-up "interpreting" phone system. Best of all, our patients love to teach you Spanish. Whether or not you know Spanish at the beginning of your residency, you will have learned Spanish by the time you graduate. The Latino population is the largest minority group in the United States, so fluency in Spanish will make you a desirable candidate for almost any job position.

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What links are there between your program and the University?

The Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons is our medical school affiliate and employs our faculty. As a resident at Columbia University Medical Center, you have access to an extraordinary array of resources. While most of our work takes place at a community hospital, at Columbia you can easily access specialist advice and teaching whenever you feel this is necessary. This allows to you to open doors for your patients in need of consults or special studies, as well as to learn from experts as you co-manage your patients with them. We often invite specialist colleagues to present conference lectures, using their expertise to help us with our primary care perspective. Faculty and residents are actively involved in teaching medical students, who rotate through Family Medicine in all four years of their curriculum. All residents have access to the University´s extensive computing and library facilities. If you choose to embark on a research project, you will have the option of seeking mentors from other areas of the university, such as the School of Public Health, in addition to mentors from our own faculty.

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What is the call schedule?

Different rotations have different call schedules. All of them strictly adhere to national and New York State work hours guidelines. On the inpatient family medicine service ('Wards'), interns work during daytime hours only, while second- and third-year residents take turns supervising interns during the day or covering night float. The Pediatrics and ICU rotations, in contrast, have q4 overnight call. On Obstetrics, each week the intern has either no overnight shifts and three nights of pager call from home, or one overnight shift and two nights of pager call from home. Pager call covers family medicine deliveries only, and if you are called in at night then you are excused from your shift the next day.

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