Training Pathways and Individualized Learning

Our residency provides strong, unopposed, full-spectrum training in family medicine while allowing residents to pursue structured elective pathways aligned with their career goals. These pathways help residents build additional skills, gain focused experience, and prepare for potential fellowship training. Residents may also use their 6 months of designated elective time to pursue career and training goals.

Residents work closely with faculty mentors to develop individualized training plans that integrate core residency requirements with areas of interest such as sports medicine, procedural medicine, obstetrics, inpatient care, and rural medicine. Pathways are flexible and may be combined with thoughtful planning and scheduling.

This approach ensures every resident graduates with a solid foundation in comprehensive family medicine, along with the opportunity to develop deeper expertise in selected areas of focus.

While all residents will gain competence to provide prenatal care, deliver their own patients, and provide postpartum care, the Advanced OB Pathway is an option for residents interested in training either to work in rural or underserved communities, or to pursue a surgical OB fellowship. In addition to the core OB curriculum, residents approved for the advanced pathway:

  • Are assigned additional continuity obstetric patients in clinic
  • Gain increased exposure to prenatal clinic with FM-OB faculty, including performing OB ultrasound
  • Complete one core rural rotation at a site with obstetric experience
  • Pursue an additional 4 weeks of an obstetric-specific elective (for example Perinatology or Rural OB)
  • Participate in and deliver dedicated didactic teaching on maternal and child health topics
  • Pursue additional procedural training pertinent to obstetric care

The Rural Intensive Pathway provides residents with expanded training and experience in rural family medicine, beyond the already strong core residency curriculum. Rural Intensive Pathway residents will:

  • Complete 8 weeks of rural away electives
  • Complete a minimum of 8 weeks of rural clinical experiences each academic year through core rotations, electives, pediatrics, surgery, and other rural training opportunities.
  • Complete a scholarly project focused on rural health, rural populations, or improving healthcare delivery in rural communities.
  • Participate in regional and/or national conferences focused on rural health and submit scholarly work (for example a poster, presentation, or abstract) when appropriate.
  • Participate in expanded leadership development, advocacy, and continuing medical education (CME) opportunities related to rural practice.

Through the Ambulatory Medicine Pathway residents will prepare for practice in a primarily outpatient clinical setting. In addition to the core curriculum, residents may gain additional exposure to pharmacy, end-of-life care, wound care, MAT and addiction medicine, urgent care, and academic medicine for those considering teaching after residency.

Through the Inpatient Adult Medicine Pathway residents will prepare for practice in a primarily inpatient setting. In addition to the core curriculum, residents may gain additional exposure to stroke care, airway management, inpatient procedures, POCUS, end-of-life care, infection management, and hospitalist medicine.

Through the FM-EM Pathway residents will prepare for practice in both an outpatient clinic and a high-acuity hospital setting. In addition to the core curriculum, residents may gain additional exposure to trauma, critical care, and procedures.