Welcome to Family Health Centers of San Diego’s
Family Medicine Residency Program
The mission of the Family Medicine Residency Program is to recruit and train physicians from diverse backgrounds who are interested in providing care to the underserved communities of San Diego, while providing high-quality, broad-based clinical education and experience.
We are in the midst of a health care workforce shortage. In 2009, the Affordable Care Act set aside approximately $230 million dollars to encourage the development of primary care residency training in ambulatory health centers, community health centers and Federally Qualified Health Centers. Research has shown graduates from these programs are more likely to practice in underserved environments, which significantly positively impacts the health care workforce shortage.
Our Family Medicine Residency Program is a community-based training program located in the City Heights neighborhood of San Diego. City Heights, the most ethnically diverse community in San Diego and one of the most ethnically diverse communities in the nation, is called home by a large number of refugees and immigrants including Latino, Somali, Vietnamese and Cambodian peoples. The clinic, which houses our residents’ continuity clinic, provides approximately 86,000 patient visits annually and has both the Joint Commission Patient-Centered Medical Home Designation and NCQA Level 3 Patient-Centered Medical Home Recognition. City Heights was selected by the California Endowment as one of 14 Building Healthy Communities sites in California. The sites were chosen “based on social determinants of health data used to identify areas that are impacted by poor health outcomes, but have the potential to inspire policy changes to create a healthy environment for all Californians.” What better way to understand the impact of social determinants of health and learn how to improve health care outcomes than to practice in an underserved environment where those determinants are front and center?
Our core curriculum for residency training is within our FQHC system. Family Health Centers of San Diego is one of the nation’s ten largest FQHCs. We are the largest health care safety-net provider, school-based health care provider and HIV/AIDs services provider in the San Diego region. We operate 73 sites across San Diego County, including 23 primary care clinics, 20 behavioral health facilities, eight dental clinics, four vision clinics, three mobile medical units, two mobile counseling centers, two physical rehabilitation clinics, a pharmacy and an outpatient substance use treatment program to support services throughout San Diego County. We provide care to over 227,000 patients each year; over 91% are low-income and 29% are uninsured. We provide Title X sexual and reproductive health care services to over 42,000 patients per year. We partner with Scripps Mercy Hospital, Rady Children’s Hospital and University of California, San Diego Medical Center for inpatient medicine, surgical and elective experiences. Rady Children’s Hospital is the largest children’s hospital in California and is ranked in all 10 pediatric specialties surveyed by U.S. News & World Report. Scripps Mercy Hospital, which cares for an urban underserved population where approximately 75% of patients are uninsured or underinsured, is recognized for high performance in 12 specialties. Additionally, FHCSD serves as a primary teaching institution for the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine, UCSD Pediatric and Medicine Residency Programs and the Scripps Mercy Transitional Year Residency Program.
We have unique curriculum tracks which cater to our special populations. Our HIV track allows for residents to have a longitudinal experience in our HIV clinic and, upon completion, our residents sit for the AAHIVM certification exam and are able to practice as HIV specialists. Through our global health area of concentration, residents learn how to build capacity for refugees, participate in an international elective and attend the AAFP Global Health Summit. Residents on our sports medicine track participate in longitudinal sports medicine clinics with our sports medicine faculty and attend the AMSSM National Conference. Our integrative medicine track teaches residents how to meld various approaches to patient care. All of our residents participate in innovative curriculum including trauma-informed care, medication assisted treatment and transgender medicine. Community-based ambulatory health care is the future of medicine in the United States, and we are excited to lead the way. Our program provides the highest-quality education in a real-world setting to improve the health disparities of our community’s most vulnerable patients. If community medicine, underserved medicine, social determinants of health and improving health care disparities and health care workforce shortages energizes you, then we invite you to apply!
FHCSD – Where YOU can be Exceptional in Every Way!
Thao Tran, M.D., FAAFP
Program Director, Family Medicine Residency Program
Learn more:
For more information, please email our staff at fmresidency@fhcsd.org.
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Employee Vaccination
The COVID-19 vaccine is required for all new staff members, effective August 1, 2021. Exceptions will be considered for disability or medical conditions, or sincerely held religious beliefs. Family Health Centers of San Diego is taking this necessary step to keep the patients we serve and the people we work with safe.
