UW Department of Family Medicine at a Glance

On this page:

• Organization
• History
• Faculty
• Education Locations
• Resident Education
• Medical Student Education
• Fellowships
• Clinical Care
• Research

Organization

• Chair: Valerie Gilchrist, MD
• Over 1000 department employees statewide
• Annual budget of almost $90 million
• Administrative offices located at St. Mary's Hospital; clinical care, residency training, and medical student education takes place statewide
• Ranked #5 family medicine department in US News & World Report in 2011

History

• 1970: Residency program created (one of the original 15 family practice residency programs in the nation)
• 1973: Formally approved as a UW Medical School department
• 1980: Third-year medical student electives in family medicine first offered
• 1983: Research division established
• 1990: Physician Assistant (PA) Program joins department
• 1996: Rural Training Track (RTT) first established
• 1998: Merger with Physicians Plus Medical Group added 50 additional faculty

Faculty

• Approximately 200 faculty
• Faculty demographics: 40% female; 31% under 40 years old
• Faculty leadership roles:
• One past-president of American Academy of Family Physicians and president of the World Organization of Family Doctors (Wonca) (Richard G. Roberts, MD, JD)
• One past-president of Society of Teachers of Family Medicine (John J. Frey, MD)
• Two UW School of Medicine and Public Health deans:
  • Byron J. Crouse, MD, Associate Dean for Rural and Community Medicine
  • Patrick E. McBride, MD, MPH, Associate Dean for Students

Statewide Education Locations

View larger: UW DFM Medical Student & Residency Education locations.

Resident Education

• Family Medicine residency programs around the state:
  • Baraboo (6 residents)
  • Eau Claire(15 residents), with an alternative training site in Augusta (1-2 residents)
  • Fox Valley (18 residents)
  • Madison (42 residents), with four training sites (Belleville, Verona, and Northeast and Wingra in Madison)
  • Wausau (15 residents)
• Diverse educational settings offer residents the choice of rural, urban, suburban, and underserved community experiences.
• Each program is dually-accredited by the:
  • Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME) and
  • American Osteopathic Association/American College of Osteopathic Family Physicians (AOA/ACOFP).
• In 2011, thirty-four residents graduated from our UW DFM programs, 21 (62%) of whom will remain in Wisconsin. Of these graduates:
  • 14 (41%) have chosen to practice in Wisconsin
  • 11 (32%) will practice outside of Wisconsin
  • 8 (24%) have been accepted into fellowships, 7 of which are in Wisconsin:
  • 1 (3%) was yet to be determined at the time of publication

Medical Student Education

• Medical student education takes place statewide throughout all four years
• A procedures workshop open to all medical students
• First and second-year experiences include: Patient, Doctor and Society Course, Generalist Partners Program, summer clinical externships, a summer research and clinical assistantship, and elective courses
• UW-DFM leads the third-year required Primary Care Clerkship with contributions from Internal Medicine and Pediatrics
• Numerous fourth-year preceptorships and electives are available
• Student advising available
• A student-run Family Medicine Interest Group (FMIG)

Fellowships

• Large postdoctoral research fellowship trains family medicine physician-scientists, with many fellows leveraging training into funded grants
• Sports medicine fellowship trains primary care physicians in the care of sports-related problems (co-directed by UW-DFM and Pediatrics)
• Addiction medicine fellowship provides clinical experience and instruction in the management of substance use disorders.
• Academic integrative medicine fellowship combines academic and integrative medicine through a unique online and Madison-based curriculum
• Academic fellowship enhances family medicine physicians' teaching, clinical, scholarly, and leadership skills

Clinical Care

• 22 clinics statewide (8 operated by the UW-DFM; 14 operated by the UW Medical Foundation)
• Over 460,000 patient visits annually
• Affiliations with 11 hospitals and medical centers statewide
• $47.5 million in clinical revenue (FY 2011)
• Services include obstetrics, geriatrics, substance abuse, mental health, sports medicine, osteopathic manipulation, and integrative medicine

Research

• $3.7 million in total grant funding in 2011
• Areas of focus include alcohol and substance abuse, complementary/integrative medicine, translational research, nutrition and obesity prevention, and upper respiratory diseases
• Wisconsin Research and Education Network (WREN) promotes and conducts research in partnership with primary care clinicians and communities