CDU and Long Beach-VA Partner in a New Internal Medicine Residency Program
Dr. Alexander Red Eagle
Dr. Arnel Joaquin
Dr. Theodore Friedman
In partnership with the Long Beach Veteran’ s Administration Hospital, Charles R. Drew University has launched a new Internal Medicine residency program. According to Theodore C. Friedman, MD, PhD, Chair of the University’ s Department of Internal Medicine, the new program represents a return to previous years when the internal medicine residency program was an integral part of the University’ s training activities.“ For 40 years of its history, the internal medicine training program was robust. When it was closed, its absence left a void.”
After a long hiatus, family medicine took up some of the training responsibility through its residency program that began in 2018. Dr. Friedman noted,
With over 100 faculty members, restarting an internal medicine residency is a significant next step.
The organizing team initially looked at a few sites, including Rancho Los Amigos Rehabilitation Hospital. In December 2018, Dean Prothrow-Stith along with other CDU leaders met with representatives of the VA-Long Beach and a partnership seemed like a natural fit. The Long Beach VA has an ongoing partnership with UCI and wanted to expand its training capacity.
With funding from LA Care and OSHPD, the new program is currently in the recruitment phase, with over 1100 applicants vying for an initial eight slots. The organizing team is using the Association of American Medical College’ s ERAS residency matching system to identify the best fit between candidates and the program with a focus on recruiting residents who want to take care of the underserved. The new curriculum is planned with an emphasis on outpatient training mainly at the VA-Long Beach with the potential of additional training at Rancho and MLK Outpatient Center, both part of the Los Angeles County Department of Health Services. There will also be fair number of elective offerings mixed into the training.
Given the acute shortage of primary care internal medicine specialists in south Los Angeles serving low- income disadvantaged residents, the new residency program will fill a large void. Dr. Friedman says that he’ s excited at the prospects.“ The Long Beach VA has been in partnership with UCI over twenty years. There’ s no need to reinvent the wheel,” he observed. The internal medicine residency has potential to immediately plug into ongoing programs both at the Long Beach site and at CDU.
Long Beach VA internal medicine specialist Alexander Red Eagle, MD cited the benefits of the training partnership to the VA.“ With this partnership, we will be better equipped to serve our veteran patient population. This is also an opportunity to train the next generation of physicians, and we can extend the VA’ s interest in workforce diversity that increases the capacity of quality patient care. A large segment of the Long Beach VA patient population are under-represented veterans who are people of color,” he added. Dr. Arnel Joaquin is Internal Medicine Program Director.
Given the ties to CDU and training that embodies the CDU Advantage, this new group of residents has the potential to relate well with patients of similar cultural backgrounds. Dr. Red Eagle, himself a Stanford-trained physician of Native American / Latino heritage who grew up in North Long Beach, echoed Dr. Friedman’ s optimism.“ Developing a good relationship between CDU and the VA will hopefully strengthen the VA’ s commitment to diversity and inclusion, as well as mentor and train young physicians interested in working with underserved populations.”
CDU College of Medicine | PG. 17