• RESIDENCY PROGRAM
  1. Introduction
  2. Admissions & Recruitment
  3. Our Approach
  4. Farrell Community Health Center
  5. Rotations
  6. Lecture Curriculum
  7. Community Tour
  8. Hospital Services & Benefits
  9. FAQS
  10. Current Resident Bios

  11. Faculty Bios

      FAMILY MEDICINE RESOURCES

1. What makes your program stand out?
2. Do your residents do international electives?
3. How many faculty members are in your program?
4. What are your graduates doing?
5. Do you have to speak Spanish?
6. What outpatient procedures will I learn?
7. What links are there between your program and the University?
8. What is the call schedule?
9. Where do residents live?
10. Is your residency program opposed?

What makes your program stand out?

Every Family Medicine residency program is different, so it's important to choose a residency that's a good match for your interests.  We are particularly proud of our Community-Oriented Primary Care (COPC) curriculum.  All of our first-year residents spend a month together learning about COPC, our community, and how to do a community needs assessment.  For the past five years, we have also traveled together to the Dominican Republic for a week to learn about the medical system and our patients' communities there.  In the second and third years, residents complete a COPC project in conjunction with a community partner.  Several of these projects have been presented at national Family Medicine conferences.  Our residency also has strengths in inpatient medicine and outpatient women's health.

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Do your residents do international electives?

Global health is a common interest for many of our residents.  Last year, our residents traveled to Malawi, St. Kitts, Kenya, China, Guatemala, and Ecuador (in addition to the first-year trip to the Dominican Republic).  We don't have set international electives, but we do have relationships in many places that allow residents to explore their interests.

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How many faculty members are in your program?

Our program has 23 faculty members: 19 MDs, five of whom also hold Masters in Public Health; two fellowship trained Maternity Care faculty; a PhD; and a DrPH. Our faculty members work with our 18 residents in many different capacities, including inpatient rounds, lecture presentations, precepting in clinic, and teaching courses. For more information on faculty members, see "Who We Are" on our website.

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What are your graduates doing?

CLASS OF 2011

       - Residency faculty in Pennsylvania
       - Pain and Palliative Care fellowship at Montefiore

       - Moving to Geneva, planning to do health worker training in Africa
       - Kaiser health center in California
       - Working in NYC for 1 year, then planning a Maternity Care fellowship
       - Community Health Center in NYC

CLASS OF 2010

        - Residency faculty (with Obstetrics) in New Jersey

        - Various jobs for one year, then moving back to California, planning to work in public health     

        - Doctors Without Borders

        - Community Health Center in the Bronx

        - Relaxing for a few months, then hoping to work at a Community Health Center in NY

        - Private practice group in Utah

CLASS OF 2009

         - Multispecialty group practice in NYC

         - Indian Health Service in Zuni, N

         - Underserved care in the Bronx

         - Public health and family planning fellowship through the Center for Family and Community

            Medicine

         - Private practice in NYC

CLASS OF 2008

         - Research in primary care fellowship, Johns Hopkins

         - Nesting sabbatical with plans to return to providing health care to underserved

           communities in NYC

         - Urgent care fellowship, Case Western Reserve University

         - New York Hotel Trades Council & Hotel Association of NYC Health Center

           Family medicine practice in NYC

         - Federally-Qualified Health Center on the Eastern Shore of Maryland

CLASS OF 2007
  

         - Practicing in a Community Health Center in Queens
         - Working in Chinatown, providing care for New York City's large Chinese immigrant

           population
         - Providing health care for migrant workers in California
         - Pompleting joint fellowship in Family Planning as well as MPH at Montefiore and

           Columbia University
         - Locums in Australia
         - Locums in New Zealand

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What outpatient procedures will I learn?

Procedures residents learn include minor skin surgery in the Family Health Center (punch and shave biopsies, electrocautery); colposcopy; IUD insertion; endometrial biopsies; circumcision; laceration repair, joint injections; incision and drainage, casting and splinting; and wound debridement. We also provide early medical and surgical abortion training.

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Do you have to speak Spanish?

You do not need to know any Spanish at all, as long as you are excited about learning! Our patient population is 85% Latino, mostly from the Dominican Republic, as well as from Mexico, Puerto Rico, and Central and South America. We also have patients of African, Russian, Jewish, Arabic, and Irish origins, among others. Half of our patients are Spanish-speaking only, and we provide support for residents who are learning Spanish. This includes hospital-sponsored Spanish lessons, and formal classes and informal practice during our Community Oriented Primary Care month.  An interpreter system is always available by phone, and there are speaker phones in all of our exam rooms. Best of all, our patients love to teach you Spanish. Whether or not you know Spanish at the beginning of your residency, you will have learned Spanish by the time you graduate. The Latino population is the largest minority group in the United States, so fluency in Spanish will make you a desirable candidate for almost any job position.

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What links are there between your program and the University?

The Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons is our medical school affiliate and employs our faculty. As a resident at Columbia University Medical Center, you have access to an extraordinary array of resources. While most of our work takes place at a community hospital, at Columbia you can easily access specialist advice and teaching whenever you feel this is necessary. This allows to you to open doors for your patients in need of consults or special studies, as well as to learn from experts as you co-manage your patients with them. We often invite specialist colleagues to present conference lectures, using their expertise to help us with our primary care perspective. Faculty and residents are actively involved in teaching medical students, who rotate through Family Medicine in all four years of their curriculum. All residents have access to the University’s extensive computing and library facilities. For research projects, you will have the option of seeking mentors from other areas of the university, such as the School of Public Health, in addition to mentors from our own faculty.

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What is the call schedule?

Different rotations have different call schedules. All of them strictly adhere to national and New York State work hours guidelines. On the inpatient family medicine service, first-year residents work during daytime hours only, while second- and third-year residents take turns supervising interns during the day or covering night float. The Pediatrics and ICU rotations, in contrast, have q4 overnight call. On Obstetrics, the first-year resident has one overnight call per week.

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Where do residents live?

The most popular areas for residents (and some faculty) to live are the neighborhoods which are closest to the Columbia-NYP Hospital and our clinic, both in the northwestern part of Manhattan.  These neighborhoods are quite different from one another and include: Morningside Heights (home of Columbia University undergraduate campus with a fun, lively collegiate vibe), Fort George/Hudson Heights (has a quieter, more residential feel), the Upper West Side (slightly more expensive but with an abundance of restaurants, cafes, bars, and nightlife) and Washington Heights/Inwood (closest to the hospital and clinic with a predominantly Dominican population base).  A few of us live across the river in the Riverdale area of the Bronx.  This neighborhood has the advantages of being very easily accessible to Manhattan by subway while at the same time offering a quieter, suburban lifestyle--ideal for residents with families or pets.  Regardless of where you live, almost all of us get to work by subway and end up having a 10-30 minute commute--just long enough to read a quick article!

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 Is your residency program opposed?

While New York Presbyterian Hospital does sponsor other residency programs, we don't consider ourselves "opposed" by them!  Seriously, we are fortunate to have most of our inpatient training (Family Medicine wards, surgery, obstetrics) at the Allen Pavilion, which is a branch of NYP Hospital with a smaller, community hospital feel.  Internal medicine, surgery, and a few other programs do rotate through "the Allen" also, but our FM wards service has only FM residents and faculty, and gets unassigned patients from the ED in a rotation with the IM resident services.  On Labor and Delivery, our residents are supervised directly by FM and OB faculty (although we do work with Anesthesia and ED residents there).

Our residents do work with other NYP residents on the following inpatient rotations: ICU, surgery, and inpatient pediatrics (which we do at CHONY, the Children's Hospital of New York).  This lets us take advantage of their world-class faculty and excellent teaching.  It's also nice to have friends in other departments around the medical center.  We really have the best of both worlds!

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