GAFP Residents

The Georgia Federation of Family Practice Residency Programs
(known as The Federation ) is comprised of the Program Directors and/or representatives of each of the family practice residency programs in Georgia. The Federation meets four times each year, normally in conjunction with GAFP Board and Committee meetings.

As part of the Congress of Delegates Annual Meeting, all Georgia residency directors are asked to submit a progress report to the Academy. Excerpts on the exciting activities our residency programs have been engaged in during the past year follow.

Atlanta Medical Center Family Medicine Residency Program
We have entered our 14th year as a program and have graduated 11 classes, with 70 percent of our graduates remaining in Georgia to practice.

We had a successful match this year, filling all six of our positions, despite another year of decreasing U.S. medical school applicants. As we begin another year of recruitment, the total number of applicants continues to rise, with the vast majority comprised of international medical graduates. This presents our program with the challenge of integrating these residents into the American culture and the nuances of the American medical system while also being sensitive to their cultural background and belief systems.

Columbus Family Medicine Residency Program
The family practice residency at The Medical Center has a long and distinguished history of providing physician graduate medical education and patient care to the Columbus area. The Medical Education program sponsors a transitional year internship in which medical student graduates receive a traditional internship on their way to specialty training such as anesthesia or radiology.

An important part of our mission is providing quality medical care to the underserved. During the last year, our teaching program saw over 35,000 outpatient visits in the Family Practice Center, delivered hundreds of infants and cared for thousands of people. With training in advanced cardiac and trauma life support, residents help provide 24/7 care to patients referred to The Medical Center’s intensive care units and trauma program.

The Medical Center is continuing an innovative hospital medicine fellowship for family practice graduates for the third year. This unique training program will give family physicians advanced hospital training while supplying needed services in underserved areas. The family medicine residency received accreditation from the American Osteopathic Association for the three-year family medicine program. The transitional year program is also dually certified by the AOA.

Emory Family Medicine
Residency Program
The Emory Family Medicine Residency Program completed its 12th year of training residents. During the 2006-2007 academic year, 24 residents were in training. Two graduated off-cycle. We filled all eight slots in the 2007 NRMP, with over 850 applicants and 60 interviews.

We had four residents submit poster presentations to the GAFP for its Scientific Convention in November 2006. Drs. Sadaf Sabzali and Leena Mane won first and second place, respectively, in the GAFP poster presentations.

Dr. Leena Mane was also selected by her Georgia residency peers to serve as the inaugural resident member on the Board.

We currently have 88 graduates in practice, approximately 75 percent of them in Georgia. We anticipate future expansion of our Dunwoody site as we strive to provide care for a larger portion of our local population. We continue to dedicate faculty resources to teaching medical students and pre-med students in an attempt to interest students in our discipline.

The Mercer University School of Medicine/Medical Center of Central Georgia Family Medicine Residency Program
On July 31, 2007, the residency saw the first fellow graduate from the geriatric fellowship program and will anticipate the second graduate completing the program in November. We now have a full complement of two fellows in the second class and anticipate expanding the class to three fellows in the coming recruiting year.

We filled six out of six positions with strong candidates in the 2006 PGY 1 class. This year we are graduating 10 residents, with eight committed to practicing in Georgia and one entering a fellowship in Georgia. Overall, 85 percent of our graduates are practicing in Georgia, with 78 percent of those serving in medically underserved areas.

In August 2005 our residency was directed to reduce our resident complement by two residents per year to result in a 6-6-6 program. The residency faculty repeatedly appealed this decision, creating a white paper delineating the residency’s impact on the hospital and community and working within the hospital system to keep the prospect of restoring the resident positions alive. The program underwent an internal review in November 2006 by the MCCG Graduate Medical Education Committee. This resulted in a recommendation to reinstate the lost positions. However, the hospital administration deferred making a decision on the positions at that time. On July 31, 2007, the hospital administration reversed its decision to cut the positions. We are therefore pleased to announce that our program will be recruiting both PGY 1 and 2 years, with the goal of filling both classes with a complement of eight residents as of July 1, 2008.

Medical College of Georgia Family Medicine Residency Program
Since graduating its first class of residents in 1975, a total of 209 residents have completed their training in the Family Medicine Residency Program. Eighty-one percent of these graduates chose to remain in the Southeast, and, of these, 66 percent chose practice sites in Georgia.
Resident recruitment activities continued on both the local and national levels, with program representatives traveling to Columbia and Charleston, S.C., and Atlanta and Augusta, Ga. Also, we attended national residency fairs with the American Academy of Family Physicians, American College of Osteopathic Family Physicians and Student National Medical Association. As a result, all eight intern positions were filled, seven in the National Resident Matching Program match and one in the osteopathic match.

Since 2000, Satilla Regional Medical Center Residency Program, rural track training program, in Waycross, Ga., has graduated 10 residents, and eight have remained in Georgia. Satilla successfully filled its two intern slots in the March 2006 scramble.

Morehouse Family Medicine Residency Program
The Morehouse School of Medicine Family Medicine Residency Program was established in 1981 and has since graduated 113 residents, with 88 percent of them practicing in Georgia.

Morehouse Department of Family Medicine residents participated in the yearly “Take Your Loved One to the Doctor Day” on Sept. 18, 2007.
Dr. Joseph Taiwo, current chief resident, served as a GAFP Georgia delegate recently at the National Conference for Family Medicine Residency, held in Kansas City, Mo., Aug. 1 through Aug. 4, 2007. Dr. Taiwo also conducted a forum on “Guidelines on Current Updates in Diabetes” and provided an update on his October 2006 trip to Modova at the same conference.

Dr. Dolapo Babalola’s presentation, “The Healthier the Mouth, the Better the Outcome of the Pregnancy,” was accepted for presentation at the 2007 AAFP Scientific Assembly in Chicago.

Rome Family Medicine
Residency Program
The Floyd Family Medicine Residency Program received 572 applications through the Electronic Residency Application Service, invited 59 applicants to interview and interviewed 36 candidates. Seven first-year residents joined us on June 11, 2007.

We attended the National Conference of Family Medicine Residents and Medical Students in Kansas City Aug. 2 through Aug. 5, 2006; Mercer University Residency Fair in Savannah and Macon Aug. 16 and Aug. 17, 2006; Medical College of Georgia Residency Fair in Augusta Aug. 29, 2006; University of Mississippi Medical Center Family Medicine Residency Fair in Jackson Sept. 7, 2006; University of Alabama AMSA Residency Fair in Birmingham Oct. 23, 2006; University of North Carolina Residency Fair in Chapel Hill Feb. 15, 2007; ACOFP 2007 Osteopathic Residency Program Fair at the ACOFP 44th Annual Convention & Exhibition in Kissimmee, Fla., March 16, 2007; Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine Hospital Day, Georgia Campus, April 13, 2007.
Seven excellent family physicians graduated on June 30, 2007, at Coosa Country Club in Rome.

Family Medicine
Center/Residency Activity
Established patient visits :14,869; patient encounters with 902 new patients; community service activities: 86; sports physicals: 600.

The Family Medicine Residency Program at Memorial Health University Medical Center

Our search for a new program director has ended successfully. Dr. Robert Pallay joined our program in September as chairman of the Family Medicine Department and as program director for the residency. He is an energetic leader and active in the American Academy of Family Physicians, starting his third year on the Board of Directors of the AAFP.
Recruitment for the resident class beginning July 1, 2007, was very good, with six PGY I residents and one PGY II resident selected. They are a culturally diverse group with great promise.

Our graduating residents have chosen academic and traditional settings in which to practice. Three out of four remained in Savannah.
Dr. Sarf Dhanji, PGY III Family Medicine resident, was voted chief hospital administrative resident by the residents of all six hospital graduate medical education programs.

The program has six full-time faculty and 20 residents. We have increased our presence in the Savannah community and look forward to increased presence with the Georgia Academy of Family Physicians.

Southwest Georgia Family
Medicine Residency Program
In the past year at the Southwest Georgia Family Medicine Residency:
l Core program restructuring - We reduced the core family medicine residency to a five PGY-1, five PGY-2 and five PGY-3 program to expand our advanced training educational program offerings.

l Geriatric Medicine Fellowship development - Dr. Daniel Yacono is working hard to develop this program, and we hope to submit our initial application for accreditation to the ACGME in time for the RRC-FM January 2008 meeting.

l Emergency medicine fellowship being considered - We are exploring the possibility of developing this program based on the University of Tennessee’s successful one-year program model to help meet the emergency room staffing needs of rural hospitals in Southwest Georgia and other underserved areas of the state.
l Residency recruitment - We filled all five PGY-1 family medicine spots (two pre-match and three through the NRMP main match) and our one PGY-4 sports medicine spot (through the NRMP primary care sports medicine match).

l Faculty departures and recruitment - Dr. Edwin “Chick” Flournoy retired from academic medicine on July 31, 2007, and Dr. Tammy Myers left to take a family medicine faculty position in Colorado. We are currently recruiting for two family medicine faculty positions.
l Graduations - We graduated three family medicine residents in June 2007 and one in August 2007. We graduated our fifth sports medicine fellow in July 2007.

l Clinical practice - In compliance with FFM project report recommendations, we are continuing to move toward the New Model of Care. We implemented modified open access scheduling in our outpatient family medicine center on Oct. 1, 2006, and are gearing up for implementation of an outpatient electronic health record beginning in July 2008.

December 19, 2007