Residency Program Update
COLLEGE OF MEDICINE
Midway through its second year of operations, CDU ' s Residency programs have been well planned. Both the Psychiatry Residency, led by Program Director Dr. Gul Ebrahim, and the Family Medicine Residency under the leadership of Program Director Dr. Lisa Barkley, are performing at a high level and the future looks bright. That foundation bodes well for long-term success.
Dr. Barkley noted that the Family Medicine Residency program has quickly become a resource that wasn ' t there before.“ A Family Medicine practice with residents seeing patients leads to increased access to patient care in the community,” she noted. The program is also important because the University has received continued accreditation from ACGME with no citations.“ That accreditation is a testament to the success of program implementation thus far. This alignment provides valuable training for family medicine doctors,” she added.
Here ' s another added value: the Family Medicine Residency program meets the mission of the University.“ Family doctors provide comprehensive care. They work in communities of need more than other specialties. And part of our role is to advocate and help patients navigate the system. Advocacy and system navigation are key components of what family doctors do. It ' s very aligned with what is needed in south Los Angeles.”
Dr. Barkley
Dr. Barkley noted that the Department of Family Medicine works closely with the core component of community faculty. She is a strong supporter of that partnership.“ We ' ve had community faculty involved from the early stages, at the beginning of the residency program in 2017. They are also part of the team that interviews candidates for the residentcy slots.”
1st Year Family Medicine Residents
This year’ s Family Medicine residency applicant pool, was overwhelming; in excess of 1000 candidates for the 8 available slots.“ It says that we’ re meeting the needs both of our communities and of our trainees. The people we’ re attracting are interested in communities that need primary care. They repeatedly tell us that our program stands out to them because they can see from our website and our activities that we are really doing a lot in communities, whereas a lot of other programs may have one or two activities. These applicants can see that we are embedded in the community and really interested in diving deeper to partner with communities,” she noted.
Is this approach a critical development in the future of medicine?“ It has to be, particularly for primary care, if we’ re going to stay relevant. I think you have to meet people where they’ re at. If you’ re not addressing the social factors that affect their life, then you’ re not doing your work effectively and we won’ t meet the needs of the patients we serve,” added Dr. Barkley.
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