Training Family Medicine residents is the sole focus of graduate medical education for our entire medical community. Our residents do not compete with residents from any other speciality. Unlike institutions with multiple residencies, our residents whether in the clinic or in the hospital, enjoy the unchallenged opportunity of treating patients with a wide variety of medical conditions. They receive mentoring from both Family Physicians, as well as a wide variety of specialists in our community.
Because Humboldt County is both rural and isolated, patients in our community receive almost all of their medical care here. Few of our patients leave the community for their care because it is over 275 miles to the nearest tertiary care center. This has led to the development of advanced capabilities more typically seen in larger hospitals and communities and provides our residents exposure to patients with a wide range of medical conditions rarely available to Family Medicine residents in other rural programs.
Although we have only 138 acute beds and a 10 bed Acute Rehabilitation Unit, Providence St. Joseph Hospital Eureka is the regional medical center for a large geographic area. We are the only Level III Trauma Center, the only Level II NICU, the only STEMI Receiving Hospital, open heart surgery program and the only Regional Cancer Center for over 150 miles in any direction. Whether in the ER, ICU, on Inpatient Medicine, Obstetrics, Surgery, Cardiology or Cancer Care, our residents get experience in treating a wide variety of patients. Being a regional center combined with the fact that our program is unopposed, creates a robust educational opportunity for Family Medicine residents.
Our program is a partnership with Open Door Community Health Centers. Open Door is a Federally Qualified Community Health Center (FQHC) with over 12 locations on the North Coast whose mission is to provide quality medical, dental, and behavioral health services, and education to all, regardless of financial, geographic, or social barriers. Our residents see their outpatients weekly at Redwood Community Health Center, adjacent to the hospital. They are assigned a panel of patients from their first day which they follow for their 3 years of training in a Patient Centered Medical Home. Residents also see patients on the Mobile Medical Clinic serving the homeless population.
Physicians in specialties including hospitalist medicine, emergency medicine, critical care medicine, pediatrics, orthopedics, physical medicine & rehabilitations, neurosurgery, neurology, cardiology, hematology oncology, general & trauma surgery and more from the Providence Medical Group, Humboldt participate as faculty in the Program.
Our residency program is fortunate to have the support of our entire medical community. Core faculty in the residents’ clinic are experienced Family Medicine physicians from Open Door Community Health Centers. Providence Medical Group, Humboldt provides an extensive variety of medical specialists in the hospital as well as outpatient clinics. Specialist physicians from Open Door as well as community physicians in private practice are all involved in teaching and mentoring our Family Medicine residents. Whether on hospital rotations, in Inpatient Medicine, in the ER or ICU, in Surgery, or in Labor and Delivery, our residents receive the undivided attention from a wide variety of experienced physicians in our community. Our residents also see patients in the offices of many community physicians on rotations in Dermatology, Orthopedic Surgery, Cardiology, Pediatrics and Geriatric Medicine.
Join Y. Luh, MD, FACP, FACR
President, Humboldt Del Norte County Medical Society
"The Family Medicine Residency Program in Eureka, CA is an excellent
pipeline for training and retaining primary care physicians in our federally
designated Health Professional Shortage Area (HPSA). The health of a community
is dependent on a foundation of strong primary care, and there is no better
way to ensure the future health of Humboldt County than training our own
primary care physicians.
Physicians already practicing in Humboldt County count it a privilege to
welcome and help train the future physicians in our community. Many thanks
to the visionary leaders at St. Joseph Hospital and Open Door Community
Health Centers for turning the dream of having a residency program into
reality."
We are pleased to have the support of other medical organizations in our community who participate in training our residents.
Eureka Rehabilitation and Wellness Center
Second and third-year residents see continuity nursing home patients with
Dr. Lei Han at the
Eureka Rehabilitation and Wellness Center.
Hospice of Humboldt
Our second year residents spend part of their geriatric rotation with Dr.
John Nelson, the medical director of
Hospice of Humboldt learning palliative care medicine and how to care for terminally ill patients.
Humboldt County Behavioral Health
Our first-year residents spend time on their Mental Health rotation at
the inpatient and outpatient facilities of
Humboldt County Behavioral Health.
Humboldt Senior Resource Center Redwood Coast PACE Program
Our second-year residents spend part of their Geriatric rotation with Dr.
Jennifer Heidmann at the Humboldt Senior Resource Center
Redwood Coast Program for the All-Inclusive Care of the Elderly.
United Indian Health Services
Our third-year residents have a month-long rotation with Dr. Antoinette
Martinez at the
United Indian Health Services at the Potowat Health Village in Arcata and as well as outlying clinics.
Providence Health & Services
Our hospital is part of the Providence System, and we benefit from our
relationships with
other graduate medical education programs in the Providence system. From administrative support, to access to the
Providence On-Line Medical Library, to placement services for our graduating residents, being a member of
a larger system offers a level of support that would otherwise not be
available for our program.
UC Davis Medical Center
There is not a dedicated pediatric inpatient service or pediatric emergency
room in our region. We have therefore formed a partnership for our first-year
residents to spend one month at the
UC Davis Medical Center in Sacramento for a rotation in the Pediatric Emergency Room and for second
year residents to spend one month on their Pediatric Inpatient Service.
Residents are provided housing in Sacramento and transportation costs
are reimbursed.
Compadre
We are members of
COMPADRE which is a collaboration between the Oregon Health and Science University
(OHSU) Rural Scholars program and the UC Davis School of Medicine Rural
PRIME program. COMPADRE aims to transform the physician workforce by training
physicians who are better prepared, more equitably distributed across
the region, and who are deeply connected to underserved communities.
UCSF Project Echo
We collaborate with the University of California San Francisco
Hepatitis C Project ECHO (Extension for Community Healthcare Outcomes) program. This brings the
expertise of university Hepatologists available to our residents in caring
for their patients with Hepatitis C.
