
UW Department of Family Medicine at a Glance
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Organization
- Chair: Valerie Gilchrist, MD
- Over 680 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
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 150 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:
- Susan E. Skochelak, MD, MPH, Senior Associate Dean for Academic Affairs
- Byron J. Crouse, MD, Associate Dean for Rural and Community Medicine
- Cynthia L. Haq, MD, Assistant Dean for Global Health
- Patrick E. McBride, MD, MPH, Associate Dean for Students
Residency
- Residency programs in five cities and two rural sites
- UW-DFM administers all residency programs (except Milwaukee)
- All residency programs offer dual MD/DO accreditation
- Approximately 125 residents currently in training
- Over 1065 graduates, nearly 700 of whom practice in Wisconsin
Medical Student Education
- 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
Fellowships
- 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)
Clinical Care
- 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
Research
- 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





