In 2006, Sutter Medical Center of Santa Rosa sought to develop community partnerships to expand support for residency operations. This initiative provided an opportunity to strengthen the financial foundation for resident education and to expand learning opportunities available to residents in training. The Santa Rosa Family Medicine Residency, along with leaders of the medical community, created a plan to implement the program’s vision of resident education. The result is the emergence of a partnership between the Santa Rosa Family Medicine Residency and many significant health enterprises in Santa Rosa. Each partner contributes an essential element to help the residency training program meet its educational, service and community-based mission. Sutter Health and Kaiser Permanente provide excellent experiences for core inpatient rotations. Additionally, Kaiser physicians and community doctors provide education and patient access to various areas of subspecialty and ambulatory care. Finally, in the current environment of medicine, a Federally Qualified Health Center, or FQHC, offers the best and most comprehensive health care to vulnerable patient populations. As a result, the residency has partnered with Santa Rosa Community Health Centers to care for Family Practice Center patients. The residency and its academic institution, UCSF, oversee this partnership to ensure that its combined work continues the mission of excellence in patient care, service, residency education and community involvement that has defined the residency since its inception. The partnership offers insight and breadth into the practice of family medicine and provides a foundation for continued excellence in residency education.

The many partners of the Santa Rosa Family Medicine Residency partnership have varied strengths and roles in the development of residents

The University of California, San Francisco, through the Department of Family and Community Medicine, provides academic support to the residency. All residency faculty have teaching appointments through the Department. Residents and faculty have access to UCSF academic resources as members of its medical community. Core faculty regularly participate in the academics and faculty development of the Department.

Sutter Medical Center of Santa Rosa currently provides the primary inpatient resident experiences and houses the Family Practice Center and residency offices. The hospital has been providing care to Sonoma County residents for 130 years. It has 175 licensed beds and is an affiliate of Sutter Health. It offers a full range of emergency, ambulatory and inpatient services. The hospital has an active obstetrics unit (averaging 160 deliveries per month), a high-risk OB program, the community’s highest-level neonatal intensive care unit, and a 10-bed ICU. The Family Practice Center (divided into five separate offices, four for resident practices) has 46 examination rooms. Next-door are the residency program offices, the offices of the program director and faculty, a library, and conference rooms.

Santa Rosa Community Health Centers, is the umbrella organization for seven primary care sites in the Santa Rosa area, all of which are federally qualified health centers (FQHCs). This clinic network provides full spectrum health care for any patient regardless of their insurance status. Many residency graduates have moved on to work in community health centers just like this one, here in Sonoma County and across the country. In addition, Santa Rosa Community Health Centers manages and operates the Chanate Family Practice Center in conjunction with the residency to provide the continuity residency practice for out-patient training as well as many specialty services for our patients. Other sites under the auspices of the SRCHCs include two school-based health clinics, Turning Point which offers residential and non-residential drug treatment services, an adult day health program, a free clinic in downtown Santa Rosa that targets the homeless, and a large primary care clinic in Southwest Santa Rosa. This partnership helps provide reduced rates for clinic visits, ancillary services, dental services, psychological care, as well as a broad range of social support services.

Sutter Pacific Medical Foundation employs the administrative staff of the residency and provides additional administrative support for many of the faculty. The foundation also provides charitable funding to the residency program. Finally, they are active supporters of educational and research activities integrated into the residency.

Sutter Medical Group of the Redwoods employs the majority of the residency faculty and works in conjunction with the Santa Rosa Community Health Centers to provide outstanding clinical education for our residents. Many of the physicians in the group have active roles teaching in the hospital and in ambulatory care settings.

Sonoma County Department of Public Health employs a number of graduates from the residency program. As a result, these physicians and community leaders lend their specialized skills to the education of residents as well as residency educational programs in general. In addition, residents spend a portion of their Leadership rotation at various sites run by the Department of Public Health.

Kaiser Hospital and the Permanente Medical Group provide thirty percent of the medical care in Sonoma County. Kaiser specializes in population-based medical care and uses innovations in practice management to provide excellent health care. Forward thinking ideas such as group visits, electronic health records, email visits, telephone visits, web-based scheduling, and patient education have been present for years. The residents participate in care of patients in both the ambulatory and hospital setting at Kaiser. Current rotational experiences include the care of children, sports medicine and musculoskeletal care, dermatology, and behavioral medicine. Future opportunities for residents are also on the horizon.

The Santa Rosa Family Medicine Residency partnership solidifies the future and promises to be a centerpiece for the evolving health care system of Sonoma County. Additionally, the partnership offers a model of residency education for the nation...It is this opportunity for training, leadership, and creativity that the residency offers to residents, faculty, and partners in the community.

The Santa Rosa Family Medicine Residency and its community partners are committed to building upon the enduring strengths and values of the program, while reaching into the future to stay on the forefront of training the best family doctors in the country