The Center for Family Medicine at Fairview Hospital and the Department of Family Medicine at the Cleveland Clinic are committed to providing superior training for residents.

The history of Fairview Hospital's family medicine residency program begins in 1976. Today, in partnership with the Cleveland Clinic, our mission remains the same -- to prepare future family physicians for lives of service to their patients, profession, and communities.

We strive to stay on the cutting edge of graduate education in family medicine. Our faculty is remarkably well rounded, each with special strengths and a determination to enrich your residency experience. With many years of teaching and practice experience, the faculty emphasizes the joy and excitement of learning and the acquisition of the skills to be life-long learners. We value teamwork in an atmosphere of support and respect for each other.

To provide a comprehensive experience, we strive for balance: balance between training in the hospital and the office; balance between the treatment of acute and chronic medical problems and the application of preventive and health promotion strategies; balance between the traditional biomedical approach and the important psychosocial, spiritual and family aspects of patient care.

We also believe in a balance between patient care, education, and our own personal and family needs. We offer a positive working environment focused on education. We acknowledge and support family issues such as pregnancy and illness. We provide a reasonable and humane call schedule. Residents and their families participate in a variety of educational and social activities, including residency picnics, parties, athletic events and an annual retreat.

The care of hospital patients is taught from two perspectives. First, residents rotate through all the traditional clinical services and have the opportunity to learn directly from specialists in those fields. Fairview Hospital and the Cleveland Clinic Foundation have busy clinical services, designed and dedicated for education. Second, residents care for their own patients on the family medicine service at Fairview, under the guidance of our faculty. Residents learn the core principles of family medicine, including continuity, coordination, comprehensiveness and cost-effectiveness of care.

The heart of family medicine is ambulatory care. Our model office, the Center for Family Medicine, provides an excellent environment for learning. We see more than 23,000 visits a year. From the beginning of the first year, each resident is an integral member of our healthcare team. The resident provides continuous care for a defined panel of families over the three years of training. Support is given by our behavioral scientist, patient education nurse, pediatric nurse practitioner and other specialty consultants.

Our diverse practice population provides experience with patients of all ages and socioeconomic backgrounds. Residents learn from and with their patients, precepted by an enthusiastic group of full-time faculty, community family physicians and sports medicine fellows. Our office is well-equipped and staffed with sincere, friendly people, who are there to help you. In August, we went live with MyPractice, the Cleveland Clinic's electronic medical records system.  We have health maintenance guidelines in our charts to assist us in providing high-quality preventive care. We have an active and constructive quality improvement process. We have an organized, comprehensive patient education program led by our patient education nurse. We have contracts with a large variety of insurance companies, including private insurers as well as Medicare and Medicaid. Residents gain extensive experience in managed care and practice management.

We emphasize training in office procedures, including flexible sigmoidoscopy, flexible rhinolaryngoscopy, minor surgery, casting and splinting, cryosurgery, colposcopy, and vasectomy. We also promote evidence-based medicine and provide training in the area of medical informatics. All residents are provided with palmtop PDA devices upon joining the program. We also encourage scholarly inquiry and provide research support for interested residents.

At the completion of their residency, our graduates are well prepared for any practice setting. They have been very successful in finding rewarding practice opportunities in urban, suburban, and rural sites in Ohio and around the country. We are proud of them and excited about the future of family medicine. We welcome your interest in our program.

 

The Cleveland Clinic Foundation

Founded in 1921 by four Cleveland physicians who believed in integrating surgical care with research and education, the Cleveland Clinic is one of the nation's largest medical centers leading and leading centers of graduate medical education. Each year, more than 950 physicians manage more than 1 million outpatient visits and 45,000 hospital admissions.

Researchers work directly with clinicians to develop and transfer the latest discoveries to the patient as quickly as possible. This commitment to research has made possible countless medical breakthroughs and innovations, earning the Clinic a worldwide reputation for excellence. Research is actively pursued by more than 500 full-time research scientists and assistants, fellows and students.

Cleveland Clinic Family Medicine

Established as a department in 1997, there are now 48 board-certified family physicians practicing at the Cleveland Clinic and its family health centers with plans to continue adding additional physicians to meet patient care demands. In addition their clinical roles, family physicians have already made significant contributions in the arenas of managed care leadership, primary care sports medicine and in medical education.

Cleveland Clinic family physicians also are actively involved in teaching medical students in their offices and precepting residents at the Center for Family Medicine. Some family physicians are also certified in Sports Medicine and are involved in teaching residents and fellows in this area.

Through contracts with a large variety of insurance companies, including private insurers as well as Medicare and Medicaid, residents gain extensive experience in managed care and practice management.