Family and Community Medicine Residency
About Our Residency
Meet some of our residents in the Department of Family Medicine at the OU-TU School of Community Medicine in Tulsa, Oklahoma. At the School of Community Medicine, we aim to recruit, retain, and develop a diverse group of resident physicians of the highest caliber who will be shaping the future of healthcare and improving the health of our community. We work in partnership with the largest hospital systems in the areas, Hillcrest Medical Center, St. Francis Medical Center and Ascension St. John Medical Center, in addition to participating in multiple clinics throughout Tulsa. We are excited to meet you and look forward to getting to know you better. To contact our Office of Student Services and Admissions please call us at 918-660-3500 or email tulsascm@ouhsc.edu.
From Viviane Sachs, MD
Since my first year of medical school I fell in love with Family Medicine. Dr. William Osler once said “ The good physician treats the disease; the great physician treats the patient who has the disease” I like to say that a family doctor is an specialist in people. In Family Medicine this is what we do. We see patients over the course of life, providing care for any stage of the journey. In my specialty I have strong connections to my patients. I believe in the importance of family and connectedness to a community.
Being a Program Director has been a goal for me since my own residency experience. I do it because I love to teach and invest in others. I want our residents to be the strongest physicians in the communities they choose to practice medicine in after residency. They should be capable and confident in delivering a baby, seeing a child for developmental concerns, and performing a Medicare wellness visit for patients over 65 in the same day.
When I review applications for residency I want applicants who choose Family Medicine as a first choice, not as a back-up plan. Residency will involve hard work and long hours. You have to do the work to receive the results.
My leadership style is a balance of protection and freedom in which residents have autonomy, responsibility, and always a safety net. Our program seeks residents who have a heart for the individuals in a community. Residency won’t be easy, it will be full of questions, debates, highs and lows. You will build life-long friendships with your colleagues and attendings. Beyond graduating well-prepared providers, our goal is that you will finish residency knowing that you made the right choice for your specialty of Family Medicine.
If you have a passion about the care of people and their community this is the program for you!
From LaMont Cavanagh, MD
Thank you for your interest in the Department of Family and Community Medicine, at the OU-TU School of Community Medicine! This is a very exciting time in family medicine, and at OU-Tulsa. Our mission is to provide the highest quality care, have the most satisfied patients, develop the most prepared residents, and create the healthiest communities. Those are lofty goals, and our clinic and residency program have undergone massive improvements to reach them. The addition of new faculty and a renewed commitment to high quality education from our highly experienced faculty has been a key component in our success.
Using the lessons gathered by national leaders in practice transformation, we have implemented a “Clinic First” model of care and training. Outstanding primary care physicians should be equipped first and foremost to provide outstanding outpatient care, so our clinic has become the centerpiece of our residency training. Utilizing an innovative residency schedule we call the mini-block model, we have been able to improve continuity of care, build our residents’ competence and efficiency in the ambulatory setting from day one of residency, and enhance our residents’ sense of wellbeing.
At the same time, we are fully committed to providing great education in the many aspects of family medicine outside of the clinic, including adult and pediatric inpatient care, obstetrics/newborn care, rural medicine, emergency medicine, geriatrics, and subspecialty care. We have an associated sports medicine fellowship, allowing for fantastic opportunities to learn musculoskeletal medicine. We also have comprehensively trained family medicine OB doctors, who will teach surgical obstetrics to interested residents.
Communities in this region come in many shapes and sizes, and we are committed to training physicians who can fit any of them. We continue a relationship with rural physicians in Bartlesville, Kansas, and Grove, OK, in order to help residents learn the nuances of working in smaller communities. All residents spend a mini-block in a rural community, with the opportunity to do more if that fits the resident’s learning needs.
Our main goal is to be forward thinking, and prepare you to be the family medicine doctor who will lead your community, urban/suburban or rural, into future health. We would love to speak with applicants who are looking for a program committed to continuous quality improvement.
I do hope that you will come take a closer look.
