Ventura Interview...

To my faithful friends and family... I've recently finished my interviews for the family medicine residency, with my last one at the program in the Ventura County Medical Center. This is a wonderful program! I am very delighted to have spent some time there and also to be interviewed there. This program is the OLDEST program in CA and possibly the oldest program of family medicine specialty in the country. The program of 'General Practice' started in 1928, and when Family Medicine became a specialty, it was the first to start in CA in 1969. This program is also the largest family medicine program with 14 candidates in each class. Why did I chose this program to interview among other programs? Well, I wanted a 'broad spectrum' training. From caring for pregnant women to deliverying their babies to taking care of both mom and baby and the family. I think this is how medicine should be, and it was the way medicine was done for thousands of years.

With our current healthcare situation of specialty heavy care, I think the ability to provide continuity of care has diminished. Why would anyone want to go to gazillion different specialists for care, with everyone of them just focusing on a part of the whole body and no one tracking how the entire person is doing? I think this is where Family Doctors are important. However, with our current system, family doctors do not get reimbursed very well compared to specialist... hence, the reason why majority of medical school graduates are going into specialties. Unless there are ways to standardize the payments, it is almost not financially feasible for family physicians to pay off our immense student-loans compared to specialists.

However, with much evaluation and temptation, I've realized that being a doctor is about taking care of people, and being a patient advocate. It is about being a resource for patients. It is about seeing what the patients and their communities need before they see it. It is about helping people to being able to adapt to their ever changing environment. We, as physicians, hold tremendous responsibility, and were given the unique opportunity to make our future together better than the past.

I can write like this for another hour, but I'll spare you. Let me just end with my experience at Ventura. In my opinion, I interviewed them as well as they interviewed me. I felt that I did my best in trying to find out where is going to be my home for at least the next 3 years. I've spent over 1 month of time working with their doctors and getting to know their residents. I am very impressed with people's credentials here. I am also impressed with how knowlegeable their family physicians are here. Being a county program and their association with UCLA, as the primary physicians in the hospital, their Family Doctors still run the ICU, still deliver babies, and do C-sections. Being a Trauma Center and a base for paramedics, their family medicine residents still run the trauma codes and follow patients into trauma surgeries with the trauma surgeons. They also have a wonderful clinic where they provide continuity of care for their patients, who they may have delivered their babies or taken care of them in the hospital. There, they also have an Osteopathic medicine clinic, where the D.O. residents can apply their art of OMT to their patients. Being a strong allopathic program linked with UCLA, this is a plus in my book.

So, overall, a program 1 mile from the surfs, sunny California with good weather year round, and a strong broad-spectrum program... I would recommend this program to anyone.