UW Department of Family Medicine at a Glance

Chair: Valerie Gilchrist, MD
Over 720 department employees statewide
Annual budget over $80 million
Administrative offices located at St. Mary's Hospital; clinical care, residency training, and medical student education takes place statewide
Ranked #3 family medicine department in US News & World Report in 2009

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

Approximately 200 faculty (10 of whom are tenured)
Faculty demographics: 40% female; 31% under 40 years old
Faculty leadership roles:
One member of Institute of Medicine and recipient of National Institutes of Health Career Achievement Award (Michael F. Fleming, MD, MPH)
One past-president of American Academy of Family Physicians (Richard G. Roberts, MD, JD)
One past-president of Society of Teachers of Family Medicine (John J. Frey, MD)
Four UW School of Medicine and Public Health deans:

Medical student education takes place statewide throughout all four years
First and second-year experiences include: Patient, Doctor and Society Course, a procedures workshop, summer clinical externships, and a summer research and clinical assistantship
UW-DFM leads third-year required primary care clerkship with contributions from Internal Medicine and Pediatrics
Numerous fourth-year electives and sub-internships available

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

26 clinics statewide (8 operated by the UW-DFM; 18 operated by the UW Medical Foundation)
Over 325,000 patient visits annually
Affiliations with 14 hospitals statewide
$25 million in annual clinical revenue (FY 2006)
Special services include geriatrics, substance abuse, mental health, sports medicine, osteopathic manipulation, and integrative medicine

Nationally ranked third in total number of NIH grants and sixth in amount of NIH funding among family medicine departments
Over $3.5 million in total grant funding in 2007, plus the recently awarded $14 million, 5-year Wisconsin Initiative to Promote Healthy Lifestyles (WIPHL) program
Areas of focus include alcohol and substance abuse, complementary/integrative medicine, translational research, and childhood obesity in American Indian populations
Wisconsin Research and Education Network (WREN) promotes and conducts research in partnership with primary care clinicians and communities