According to many healthcare reform experts, our nation faces a shortfall of tens of thousand of pri-mary care physicians in the next decade. Since the in-ception of the Valley Fami-ly Medicine Residency, our vision has included training primary doctors to attenu-ate our local shortage here in the Central Valley and nationwide. Five success-ful years into our develop-ment, we have demonstrat-ed sufficient volume and resources to win official approval from ACGME to train up to 12 residents per year. Congratulations for a job well done by residents and faculty in upholding a

high performance standard. Now, all we need is fund-ing to support more train-ees. Residencies like ours can only sustain expansion if funding expands as well. Supporters of a strong healthcare workforce should advocate to legisla-tors at the state and federal level to reform graduate medical education financ-ing. Given the modern

day crisis in access to health care, shifting more investment toward the training of primary care doctors is a no-brainer.

Family Medicine Residency Now Approved as 12-12-12 Program

Smoothie-ing the Path to Health, as a Group In last year’s newsletter, we reported on an exciting new venture, funded by specially allocated state funds. In our group diabetes care, residents are trained in conducting medical group visits and facil-itating activities geared to-ward active learning and peer-to-peer teaching. Our innova-

tive model creates a multidis-ciplinary team including the patients themselves, a peer liaison from the community center, a behavioral health specialist, and the physicians all working together to opti-mize chronic disease manage-ment and positive behavior

Yearly Update about the Busiest Doctors in Town Fall 2015

Volume 5, Issue 1

The Morning ReportThe Morning Report

Save the date!

In-Training Exam October 26-30, 2015

Interviews Begin November 12, 2015

Match Day March 18, 2016

VCME Scholarly Forum May, 2016 TBA

Graduation June 25, 2016

Graduates Launched into World 2

Global Health: Barbados 3

Human Simulation 3

Mind-Body Connection 3

First Annual Scholarly Forum 4

Our set of happy graduates and their program director, 2015. They were this happy even before hearing the good news!

Inside this issue:

Continued on page 2...

Did you know….. Family physicians once again were the number one most requested positions to be filled by recruiters, with an average salary (not in-cluding benefits and bonus-es) of $198,000, according to an annual report released by Merritt Hawkins. The re-quests for our primary care specialty were nearly triple that of the #2 specialty, in-ternal medicine.

Jose Alberto, MD (Universidad Autonoma de Guadalajara) Jose has joined Scenic Faculty Medical Group and will be practicing in Hughson, CA.

Miguel Cazares, MD (Ross University) Miguel has joined Sutter Gould Medical Foundation and will be practicing in Ceres, CA.

Maryal Concepcion, MD (Creighton University) Maryal has joined Arnold Family Medical Center and will be prac-ticing in Arnold, CA.

April Gunn, DO (Arizona COM of Midwestern University) April has joined Scenic Faculty Medical Group and will be practicing in Modesto, CA.

Brandon Hobel, MD (Ross University) Brandon has joined Sutter Medical Group and will be practicing in Auburn, CA.

Jaskiran Hundal, MD (Ross University) While determining permanent position, Jaskiran will be doing locum tenens in Stanislaus County.

Mariko Ishiyama, DO (Touro University) Mariko has joined Hospitalists of Modesto and will be practicing in Modes-to, CA.

Sanna Mahmood, MD (Universidad Autonoma de Guadalajara) While determining permanent position, Sanna will be doing locum tenens in Stanislaus County.

Joseph Novencido, DO (Chicago COM of Midwestern University) Joseph has joined Gateway Medical Group and will be practicing in Chula Vista, CA.

RaeLeigh Payanes, MD (Ross University) RaeLeigh has joined Scenic Faculty Medical Group and will be practicing in Modesto, CA.

Hardeep Saini, DO (Michigan State University COM) Hardeep has joined Scenic Faculty Medical Group and will be practicing in Hughson, CA.

Charmi Shah, MD (St. George’s University) Charmi has joined Alameda Family Physicians and will be practicing in Alameda, CA.

management, health promo-tion, behavioral health, and education. It’s eye-opening to witness the power of peer support in improving patients’ health.”

continued from front page

change. Since the project began a year ago, 16 residents have trained in this group model, and over 41 patients have received care through this model. Says Dr. McLaw-rence, PGY3, “The group demonstrates the integration of all aspects of what family medicine can be: disease

Graduates Off to Great Things!

Smoothie-ing the Path to Health, as a Group (cont’d)

Page 2 The Morning Report

The residency program also of-fers training in group prenatal care, in both English and Spanish

I have had people tell me: “I felt important enough to care about myself, thanks to the Diabetes group.”—Dr. Juan Lopez-Solorza

By Dr. Imran Ally , ‘16, who is fulfilling an Area of Con-centration in Global Health: During my two week elective in Barbados, I had three main clinical exposures. The first clinical site was the Queen Elizabeth hospital ac-cident and emergency depart-ment. Health care at this site was free of charge and sup-plied by the government. Re-sources were scarce, such as furosemide and lancets for checking blood glucose, and even alcohol swabs. My se-cond site was a local privately

-owned urgent care center. This was a beautiful facility which was open 24 hours and had state-of-the-art medical supplies and a radiology suite on site. Patients who could afford out-of-pocket cost could also have labs drawn, receive IV fluids and have short stays until recovered or treated for their problem. I enjoyed this site because of the variable patient scenarios and the ability to use the available resources to treat the patient right away. The last site was an outpatient clinic

where patients were seen in a primary care setting. This was a new clinic which was now starting a practice and all the patients were adults. My in-teractions with these patients were surprisingly no different than the interactions with my own patients here in Modesto. I was not sure if being from Barbados made this interac-tion easy or if it was because the cultural differences were not that dissimilar.

and families, especially those impacted by trauma. Besides the structured curriculum, residents enjoy a weekly sem-inar which includes “check-in” time when stressful events and situations can be vented and processed in a circle of trusted colleagues.

Last year, Dr. Marlene Cohen passed the baton to our new behavioral science director, Rheena Pineda, PhD. A na-tive of the Philippines, Dr. Pineda trained at UC Davis as well as the University of Col-orado, Denver, and we are thrilled to welcome her. Flu-ent in Spanish, she also offers enhanced expertise in children

Global Health Training: Elective in Barbados

The Mind-Body Connection

Jump start on Leadership

We are thrilled to collabo-rate with Modesto Junior Col-lege and their state-of-the-art human simulation lab. Last February the residents created teams and tried to revive com-puterized mannequins who appeared to succumb to sepsis and post partum hemorrhage (yes, bleeding and gasping for air and all!) Welcome to med-icine in the 21stCentury!

Page 3 Volume 5 , Issue 1

Dr. Pineda To take the behavioral science bull by the horns!

Modern Education: Enter Human Simulation

“From my experience I would say there were more similarities than differences…..”, Imran Ally, PGY3

“As current residents and future family physicians, their work will be impact-ful in reducing the burden of mental illness in our communities. I look for-ward to learning from the patients, residents and faculty as well as the won-derful experiences ahead!”

Just as our own Dr. Del Morris wrapped up his year as CAFP President, fresh leadership blood is surging through our veins. Congratulations to our own Dr. Nadeem Goraya, Class of 2017, the new resident repre-sentative to the Stanislaus Med-ical Society, who shares “being involved in advocacy gives me the satisfaction of impacting more people than I would as an individual physician.”

MJC instructor Sally Chaffee and Dr. Sabrina Arora, PGY2 save a life

Thuy-Lien Le, PGY3, “I was so surprised to see how much scholarly activity our resi-dents had completed. The forum inspired me to do more!” Join us next spring for the 2nd annual regional event here, at the nexus of physician training in Stanislaus County.

Stanislaus county’s two resi-dencies dazzled the communi-ty with their proud display of residents’ scholarly projects while outside speakers gener-ated lively discussion about controversies affecting physi-cians in our community. Dr. Peter Broderick, DIO for VCME stated, “This begins an exciting tradition as gradu-ate medical education contin-ues to grow and thrive in our county. I’m thrilled to see our residents and faculty engaging in lively debate with outside experts.” Residents, too, were inspired by this inaugural event, which will be contin-ued annually. Remarked Dr.

First Annual VCME Scholarly Forum

Valley Consortium for Medical Education 1400 Florida Ave, Ste 200 Modesto, CA 95350

Phone: 209-576-3523 Fax: 209-576-3597 Email: suzy.juarez@tenethealth.com

W E’ RE ON THE W EB! www.valleymeded.org/familymed

F IND US ON

The Valley Family Medicine Residency of Modesto was founded in

2010. Our community has a thirty-

five year history of training family

physicians for this region.

Valley Consortium for Medical

Education is a public-private part-

nership with Doctors Medical Center, Memorial

Medical Center, and Stanislaus County Health

Services. Our mission is to train physicians

through service to those in need. Our residents

build on a four-

decade legacy of comprehensive care for the un-

derserved, ethnically diverse population of Stani-

slaus County.

The saga of the Sleepless Knights twice a year!

Training tomorrow’s doctors today

The Morning Report

UC Davis School of Medicine- Affiliated

Our Sponsors:

Stanislaus Chapter

Third year residents explain their posters while various community faculty soak up their excit-ing new ideas.