Thoughts from the Chair

Colleen T. Fogarty, MD, M.Sc., FAAFP;
William Rocktaschel Professor; Chair, Department of Family Medicine

Our required Family Medicine Clerkship for URSMD students has entered its third year. Dr. Elizabeth Brown, FM Clerkship Director and DFM Director of Medical Student education, has assembled a team of outstanding family physician preceptors, including faculty from Jordan Health (Woodward and Brown Square sites), URMC Primary Care Network (including Monroe, Other counties…), and Department of Family Medicine/HFM faculty. This group of 80 family physicians has taught over 4000 medical student hours during academic year 2022-23!

The demand for the broad clinical training and experience of Family Physicians has not decreased over time! Good data continues to show that that the “4C’s”—first contact, comprehensiveness, coordination, and continuity, remain essential for high quality primary care. Rural areas in particular, are challenged with access to healthcare, owing to greater distances to travel, and smaller population centers.

We in the Department of Family Medicine have been working with partners in our local Finger Lakes counties, starting with Tri County Family Medicine (TCFM), a Federally Qualified Health Center “look alike,” headquartered in Dansville, NY with 5 rural practice sites across Allegany, Livingston, Steuben & Wyoming Counties.

Our first partnership with TCFM involved our Family Nurse Practitioner residency, which, with the funding of HRSA, allowed us to place one FNP resident at TCFM for the continuity portion of their one-year training. Based on our FNP residency’s success, in August 2023, we were awarded a new HRSA grant to expand our FNP residency, to increase our cohort of NP residents from 3 per year, to 6 per year, with 2 FNP residents at TCFM each year. The NP residents at TCFM provide continuity of care and acute care to patients in the rural Finger Lakes region, under the guidance of Advance Practice Providers (APPs) and in collaboration with TCFM family physicians. Luzann Ampadu, FNP-BC, DNP-S and Carissa Singh, DNP, FNP-C, have been our FNP program directors since January 2022 and continue their leadership of our expanded program.

This spring, we were notified of being an awarded a HRSA Rural Residency Planning Grant, to establish a Family Medicine rural training track in partnership with TFCM. Dr. David Holub, our new residency program director, spent his first several years of practice in a full spectrum Family Medicine practice in rural northern New England; I’m so pleased that he will bring this background as well as his experience as a residency leader, together to lead this important new training program.

Expanding our Family Medicine clinician training to include partners south of Rochester in the Finger Lakes helps in meeting the need for clinicians to serve our rural population, bringing the high quality care closer to home, for all!

1/3/2024

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