About

Please view our mission statement here

Family Medicine has flourished in large part due to its latitude of practice styles. Many excellent Family Medicine residency programs exist throughout the country, each representing distinctive philosophical, educational and practice styles.

The UCLA Family Medicine Residency Program is dedicated to diversity and depth of quality experience:

  1. Critical to acute to outpatient continuity care:
    • Our residents receive ACLS, BCLS, Neonatal and PALS training/certification during orientation, sponsored by the UCLA Medical Center.
    • Our residents comprise the rapid response team of Santa Monica Hospital, and senior residents oversee rapid responses and codes
    • Our residents work alongside UCLA residents from the pediatric, surgical, emergency medicine, and internal medicine programs
    • Our residents develop robust continuity patient panels at UCLA Family Health Center (UFHC) and MidValley Clinic
  2. Academic lecture series to informal talks to medical student mentorship
    • Education Half Day Curriculum every Wednesday morning devoted to a combination of didactics, small group discussions, and Journal Club presentations. This Wednesday morning experience uses a rotating 18 month curriculum covering the core topics in Family Medicine.
    • Scholarly project is required and presentations on clinical topics for various conferences throughout the Medical Center and Residency are encouraged.
    • Culture of real-time teaching whether in clinic or while rounding that transcends across all training sites, led by UCLA attending physicians
    • Dedication to third year medical student mentorship in continuity clinics, beginning as PGY2 where students work closely with residents for patient care, presentations, and note collaboration.
  3. Patient diversity
    • Our residents spend approximately half of their training at either MidValley County Clinic and Olive View/UCLA Medical Center, our county hospital inpatient, urgent care, pediatric, and emergency medicine experience. These institutions sample across one of the most diverse counties in one of the most diverse states in the entire country.
      • 70% of patients are uninsured.
      • Many are immigrants from numerous countries.
      • A large minority are Spanish speaking only; tens of languages are spoken alongside English on a daily basis. In a given day, it is common to patients from all walks of life including African American, various Latin American, East and Southeast Asian countries, Indian, Armenian, Russian, and Pacific Islander communities.
      • Many are challenged by medical illiteracy
    • Our residents spend another half of their training at UFHC, which samples more of the West Los Angeles community
      • Often are medically complex
      • Often embrace alternative medicine, East-West medicine
      • Follow community SNF patients longitudinally as PGY2 and PGY3
  4. Community outreach
    • Venice Family Clinic (Federally Qualified Health Center) evening clinic
    • FM Bridging The Gap Pipeline Program at local Van Nuys High Schools
    • Mi Mentor and the UCLA David Geffen School of Medicine Family Medicine Interest Group
    • Semi-Annual Lennox Health Fair
    • Project Heal
  5. Procedures
    • Dedicated Procedure Clinics at MidValley and UFHC: endometrial biopsies, colposcopies, skin biopsies, trigger point injections, trigger finger injections, knee and shoulder injections
    • Emergency/Urgent Care: bedside ultrasound, I&D, laceration repairs, casting, lumbar punctures, central and arterial line placement, paracenteses, thoracenteses
    • ICU: lumbar punctures, central and arterial line placement, paracenteses, thoracenteses
    • OB: AROM, IUPC and FSE placement, vaginal delivery, CS assist, laceration repair.
    • Surgery: I&D, lipoma and pilonidal cyst removal, chest tube and wound vac management. Opportunity to scrub into scheduled operations if interested.
    • Dermatology: punch and shave biopsies, cryotherapy
    • Orthopedics: joint injections, casting
  6. Exposure and opportunities to work with top tier UCLA Family Medicine fellowship programs
    • Sports Medicine
    • Palliative Medicine
    • Addiction Medicine
    • Geriatrics
    • Community Medicine
  7. Resident wellness
    • Resident families (one PGY1, 2, 3)
    • Social whatsapp dedicated to spontaneous and scheduled resident activities (e.g. happy hours, beach days, Korean BBQ)
    • Beautiful weather (average 70-80s, sunshine, gentle breeze, no rain)
    • Amazing food (micro breweries, ramen, food trucks, Middle Eastern, Korean, Chinese, vegan, brunch, farmers' markets)
    • Metro light rail station blocks away from UFHC, with at most 30 minute trip to downtown LA even at rush hour
  8. Various EMR fluency
    • Epic (Care Connect) is used across the UCLA system
    • Cerner is used across the Los Angeles County system, CHLA, and California Hospital
    • CPRS is used at the VA