Our Family Medicine Residency Program, established in 1971, is one of the oldest in the nation. It is the only physician training program in the hospital, allowing each resident to be “first in line” for every experience.
Beginning your first day you will be provided with a well-rounded curriculum with a blend of didactic sessions and hands-on educational experiences.
- Intern Boot Camp
- State-of-the-Art Simulation Lab Training
- Flexibility to concentrate on special areas of interest
- A focused office experience
- Osteopathic training in hospital and office
- Night Call/Float
- Practice Management
- Sports Medicine
- Community Medicine and Public Health
Additional Experiences
- International Health
- Women’s Health
- Community Outreach which includes homeless healthcare and a Spanish language clinic
Residents have the opportunity to participate in a variety of program sponsored and elective activities in these areas.
What sets apart our Osteopathic Training?
Osteopathic residents receive training longitudinally in osteopathic principles and practices throughout all three years of residency. Teaching is provided in both the hospital and office settings on the residents own patients, as well as patients referred to the OMT clinic.
Osteopathic medicine has long been accepted at our institution and is highly regarded as a beneficial and integral part of patient care.
We provide complete training in osteopathic medicine, giving our graduates a deep understanding of how to:
- Efficiently perform OMT in both the office and the hospital
- Bill for OMT
- Incorporate the osteopathic principles and philosophy into all patient encounters
We achieve this training through:
- OMT Clinics where patients with somatic dysfunction in any body region are treated
- Workshops where faculty and residents (under faculty supervision) teach hands-on OMT skills to osteopaths and allopaths
- Mentoring where osteopathic residents help train the interested allopaths
Graduating from our program gives you lots of options!
WHS prepared me very well for the depth and breadth of Family Practice. I would definitely choose WHS for residency again.
The residency program provides the sports medicine services for Washington and Jefferson College and Washington High School. Pre-participation sports physicals and football game coverage are longitudinally done by all of our residents. We also are the team physicians for the Washington Wild Things, the local Frontier League Professional Baseball team. In our Sports Medicine track, the resident will have an opportunity to do an elective in sports medicine working directly with our Primary Care-Sports Medicine faculty, orthopedic surgeons and athletic trainers to provide services to professional, college, and high school athletes.
Required curriculum for women’s health includes 4 months of OB/GYN. For residents interested in additional training we have two Women’s health tracks that includes additional obstetrical and gynecology experience in the second and third year. Training occurs in a variety of settings.
- Our OB/GYN Clinic run by family medicine OB faculty, including a high-risk clinic supervised by local OB/GYN physicians
- Labor and delivery suite
Training includes OB care as well as experience in gynecological procedures such as colposcopy, IUD insertion, and endometrial biopsies.
Our international trip options are spearheaded by two faculty members, Dr. Monica Speicher and Dr. Michael Zanic.
Dr. Speicher takes residents and WVU students yearly to Fiji as part of WVU’s global health program. Dr. Speicher has a long history of international medical experiences, including volunteering for medical missions in Honduras, Guatemala, Mexico, Costa Rica, and Peru. In addition, she worked as a Family Medicine physician in New Zealand prior to joining the faculty at WHS.
While we have multiple options for international rotations, due to our faculty involvement with the global health program at WVU, most residents choose to travel either to the Dominican Republic on a five-day trip with Dr. Zanic or on a two week elective to Fiji with Dr. Speicher.
The mission to the Dominican Republic is held at a clinic that is constructed purposefully for our services, located at the capital of the country, Santiago. It is part of a larger overarching mission group, the Order of Malta, that combines multiple specialties and services to the area. Residents who participate in the Dominican Republic trip work alongside Dr. Zanic and other family physicians, as well as internal medicine physicians, cardiologists, pulmonologists, urologists, and general and orthopedic surgeons. The trip is five days long, three of which are utilized providing direct patient care while the remaining are used to set up the facility. Approximately 1,100 people are cared for over those three days by the mission group.
The Fiji trip occurs over a four-week period between the last week of March and the third week of April and includes 3-5 fourth year medical students from WVU. Because our group partners with the local Fijian health system and is sponsored by a local outdoor recreation business, we have the privilege to travel and work in areas not often frequented by tourists. From the highlands of central Viti Levu to some of the surrounding smaller islands, we typically live and eat in villages while providing well childcare in schools and afternoon and evening clinics for the general community population. When not on outreach trips, residents are able to work in the local hospital doing adult or pediatric clinics or maternity or emergency care. Our home base lies in the costal “adventure capital of Fiji” town of Pacific Harbor, which means there is plenty to explore during off time.
Because of our affiliation with WVU, our residents also have the opportunity to participate in established international experiences in 11 other countries, including Ghana, Brazil, Paraguay, and Spain. In addition, our faculty has the resources to help you arrange a trip of your own design.
We have many community medicine opportunities here at WHSFM. We work closely with our unhoused and unsupported population through a volunteer street outreach program. In addition, we hold regular medical clinics and patient teaching sessions at the local shelter, the Washington City Mission. Washington City Mission is the county’s largest shelter. It houses up to 100 unhoused residents nightly and feeds at least twice as many every day. Second- and third-year residents routinely staff the free clinic at the Washington City Mission as part of their Clinics and Community Medicine rotations. Along with providing valuable care to this vulnerable population, this experience allows our residents to become familiar with various community resources for mental health, rehabilitation, and social services. In addition, we have close ties with the county HHS department, which affords residents many experiences throughout the regional social support network, should they choose.
Residents also participate in multiple local health fairs a year including festivals and events such as Juneteenth and Pride. They also host community talks on request for popular or needed health issues at a variety of locations in the area, including many of the senior citizens centers throughout the county. We also work with a local underserved youth community center to do after-school STEM classes for elementary and middle schoolers. Topics include germs and handwashing, skin care and hygiene, cardiovascular and lung health, and eyes and ears. We have volunteer opportunities within the LGBTQ+ community, local churches, and are in the process of reinvigorating our non-English speaking volunteer medical clinic. The residency staffs a weekly MAT clinic for our patients. Additionally, residents participate in monthly hospital-wide community advisory board meetings as their physician representative.