Providence Milwaukie Family Medicine Residency program offers a rural training track (RTT) residency in family medicine in the community of Hood River, Ore., in partnership with Providence Hood River Memorial Hospital and La Clinica del Carino Family Migrant and One Community Health (an FQHC). This program is designed for residents to achieve a broad training skill set to care for vulnerable and underserved peoples in rural communities.
Residency description
The RTT will be a 1-2 track of the Providence Milwaukie Family Medicine Residency program and have two assigned residents per year.
Residents in the first year will live in Portland and complete rotations in area hospitals with the core program residents. The R2 and R3 years will be in Hood River, Ore., a beautiful and diverse rural community 70 miles east of Portland in the Columbia River Gorge.
One Community Health/La Clinica Del Carino Family Health Center will be the site of the residents’ ambulatory practice.
Inpatient care will be provided at Providence Hood River Memorial Hospital, a 25-bed critical access hospital with a full emergency department and medical, surgical, pediatric and an obstetrical unit that delivers 400 babies a year.
Residents will return to Portland for two- to four-week blocks each year for higher volume rotations in obstetrics, adult medicine and desired electives.
Rationale for a rural residency training track
Rural communities depend on clinicians with a broad scope of skills to care for them and their families. Modern rural family physicians still require a breadth of training, experiences and mentorship that may not be available or easily supported in urban communities.
We expect to be a rural residency track that incorporates the rigors of academic-based training with real-world experience in a small community away from urban academic centers. We expect that our RTT graduates will practice in small, rural communities and have the skills to care for a diverse patient population, maintain life balance and enjoy life-long learning.
Schedule and curriculum
First year curriculum: First year residents will live in Portland/Milwaukie and participate in all but one rotation in Portland and alongside residents at the core program at Providence Milwaukie Hospital. The hospital and residency curriculum will be the standard First year rotation schedule with the exception of block 4.
Block 4 will be an introductory family medicine rotation in Hood River and the option to improve Spanish language fluency. RTT first year residents will begin their continuity practice in Hood River and see their patients at La Clinica del Carino at scheduled days throughout the year.
Residents will be assigned to a family-centered medical home team where they will co-manage their patients with Hood River family medicine faculty.
Second and third year: In the second and third year, residents will live in Hood River and the majority of their clinical experience will revolve around their family health center’s practice at La Clinica and Providence Hood River Memorial Hospital.
Residents provide care to their patients at La Clinica three to four half-days a week and admit patients and attend deliveries at Providence Hood River Memorial Hospital.
Residents will be expected to communicate in Spanish with the patient population by the beginning of the second year.
The curriculum and rotations will be organized longitudinally, with the exception of two to three months in Portland for rotations in high-risk obstetrics, critical care and adult inpatient and electives.
Longitudinal elements will provide the required number of hours in cardiology, surgery and surgical specialties, emergency medicine, behavioral health and psychiatry, sports and physical medicine, obstetrics and pediatrics.
Example of a four-week block of second and third Year RTT schedule
Call will be in rotation with residents and community family physicians. Resident call will involve an evening shift in the Emergency Department, followed by at-home call.
Hospital work will include weekly rounding on an inpatient family medicine service that will include adult, pediatric and maternity patients.
An international medicine rotation in the second and third year will be encouraged.
Didactic and educational seminars will be both local and regional. Telemedicine and remote videoconferences with residents in the core program will be blended with local conferences. Residents will return to Portland for select seminar and educational sessions.
Resident support groups, retreats and leadership meetings will be also blended with the core program. In addition, residents from the core program at Providence Milwaukie Hospital will continue to participate in their small community rotation in Hood River during their second year and be scheduled in order to provide coverage when RTT residents are away for Portland or international rotations.
Faculty
Family medicine faculty will include seasoned clinicians from La Clinica Migrant and One Community Health Center, and private practitioners from Columbia Gorge Family Medicine and Summit Medical Group.
The faculty is a very enthusiastic group of family medicine clinicians with up to 30 years of clinical and teaching experience in broad-spectrum family medicine, including routine and high risk obstetrics, surgical obstetrics, pediatric and neonatal care, geriatric and behavioral health.
Specialty faculty are largely part of Providence Medical Group, and include disciplines of general and orthopedic surgery, ophthalmology, urology, ENT and Ob/Gyn. Visiting faculty in pulmonary, hem-oncology and behavioral medicine well as family medicine and behavioral medicine faculty from our core program complete the RTT faculty.
Timeline/interview process
All applicants must go through Providence Milwaukie Family Medicine Residency applicant process and interview at core program.
Interested applicants should self-identify and contact Mike Holt or Dr. Gobbo by email. We offer half-day interviews and tour sessions in Hood River from November through January.