About the Program

Accreditation

St. Francis Hospital's three-year Family Medicine Residency Program is affiliated with Temple University School of Medicine and fully accredited by the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME). The St. Francis Hospital Family Practice Residency Program is a fertile environment in which to grow as a family physician, serving as a satellite teaching site for Temple students in their third and fourth years of medical school.

St. Francis is also approved as an Osteopathic internship site and enjoys a relationship with the Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine. This allows the Residency to teach third and fourth year Osteopathic students as well.

Curriculum

The St. Francis Hospital Family Medicine Residency Program curriculum prepares residents for the challenges of an active family practice. Although opportunities for learning exist throughout your family medicine career, it is the years during training that allow a continuous open flow of questions and answers.

At St. Francis Hospital, you will be exposed to a vast array of patient care responsibilities and experiences, including education in the traditional specialties and subspecialties of medicine and surgery. To further enhance your family medicine skills, you will also receive training in the behavioral aspects of medicine and the management of the family as a social unit.

The Program presents limitless learning opportunities through a wide variety of inpatient and outpatient clinical exposures. As a resident, you will manage your own patients for three years, providing them with continuous care.

First Year

Your first year contains rotations in medicine (including ICU), surgery, obstetrics, pediatrics and emergency medicine. Unique to our Program is a newborn/obstetrics rotation where residents follow, deliver and discharge both mothers and newborns alike. It is truly a family medicine experience.

The inpatient pediatrics rotation includes one month at A.I. duPont Institute and one month at Christiana Care, a tertiary pediatric hospital, where you can experience an even larger, more diverse pediatric population. Subspecialty experiences in ENT/ophthalmology and community medicine are provided early in your training. In addition, as a first-year-resident, you will see patients in the Center one half-day per week. A specific family practice center outpatient rotation provides an intense exposure to the ambulatory care area.

First Year Rotation Schedule
Medicine 2 months
Pediatrics 2 months
Surgery 2 months
Community Medicine 1 month
ENT/Ophthalmology 1 month
OB/Newborn 2 months
Emergency Medicine 1 month
Family Practice Center (Outpatient) 1 month
1st-year Resident "On-Call" Schedule Night Float System in Effect as per ACGME Resident Work Hour Regulations

Second Year

During the second year, your training consists of three months of inpatient medicine with added responsibility in the ICU as well as in pediatrics, including a newborn/pediatrics experience onsite. At this time, increasing emphasis is placed on various subspecialty experiences such as dermatology, neurology, psychiatry, cardiology and geriatrics. As a second-year resident, you will have office hours for two to three half-day sessions per week.

Second Year Rotation Schedule
Medicine 2 months
Family Medicine Service 1 month
Pediatrics* 1 month
Orthopedics 1 month
Psychiatry/Human Behavior 1 month
Cardiology 1 month
Dermatology/GU 1 month
GYN 2 months
Geriatrics/Occupational Health 1 month
2nd-year Resident "On-Call" Schedule One-Month Night Float System in Effect as per ACGME Resident Work Hour Regulations
* includes inpatient, newborn, and outpatient pediatric experiences

Third Year

Your third year provides an unusually large amount of individually defined education. An abundance of clinical opportunities is available for the three months of electives, which could include time in radiology and occupational medicine. Our program allows time for you to develop training in a major clinical field of interest in family medicine, such as obstetrics, pediatrics, psychiatry, sports medicine, outpatient surgery and/or internal medicine.

During the third year, you have the opportunity to test your medical knowledge and administrative skills in a two-month rotation as Supervisory Resident in internal medicine. A one-month rotation as Office Chief Resident provides supervisory experience in pediatrics, obstetrics and the Family Practice Center. The number of office hours increases (three to five sessions per week), as you prepare to open your own practice. Clinical research projects are encouraged, and support is provided by the faculty and through association with the Temple University School of Medicine.

Third Year Rotation Schedule
Medicine 2 months
Family Medicine Service 1 month
Office Chief Resident 1 month
Electives 3 months
Rural/Urban Medicine 1 month
Pediatric Outpatient 1 month
Neurology 1 month
3rd-year Resident "On-Call" Schedule One-Month Night Float System in Effect as per ACGME Resident Work Hour Regulations

Facilities for Residents

The Family Practice Center is housed in the Medical Service Building adjacent to the main Hospital. Its convenient location provides residents with direct access to their inpatients for care. State-of-the-art laboratory and diagnostic facilities are housed there or in the adjoining Medical Office Building. The Family Practice Center is spacious and comfortable, and built specifically to meet the needs of the Teaching Program. During office hours, residents have the use of examination rooms and consultation rooms. The Family Practice Center has a fully equipped outpatient minor surgical procedure suite.

Residents have access to the Hospital's Medical Library. Here, computer technology provides reference literature so you can keep in touch with current medical issues and trends.