Family Practice Residency program receives accreditation

Published March 20, 2013
By Staff Sgt.Maria Bowman
375th Air Mobility Wing Public Affairs

SCOTT AIR FORCE BASE, Ill. -- The Family Medicine Residency program here recently received a five-year accreditation, a mark of excellence in the medical community.

In July, the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education inspected the residency program, which provides doctors three years of specialty training in family medicine. They were informed of their accreditation in January.

Scott Air Force Base's Family Medicine Residency program at St. Louis University Family Medicine in Belleville, Ill., offers this specialized training for new doctors, civilian and military.

Lt. Col. Kirsten Vitrikas, Scott AFB Family Medicine Residency military program director said, "If the program does well in the accreditation process, we get a five-year accreditation, which is what we received. The ACGME has different requirements for each of the residency programs, so we have a guideline that we go by called the residency review committee that lays out what we have to include in our training."

The three-year integrated military-civilian SLU Family Medicine Residency Program began as two separate programs. The military program at USAF Medical Center at Scott AFB received its initial accreditation in 1974, and the civilian program, sponsored by Southern Illinois University, at St. Elizabeth's Hospital accepted its first residents in 1981. Due to the growing focus on outpatient medicine and space limitations, the two residencies were merged into one during the mid-90s, which is under the primary sponsorship of SLU.

The residency program renewed it's five-year accreditation by the ACGME in January.

The program has 42 slots total. Every year, 14 new residents are selected and eight slots are reserved for the military.

The residency program receives support from four sponsors: the 375th Medical Group, St. Elizabeth's Hospital, Saint Louis University, and Southern Illinois Healthcare Foundation.

The medical residents receive training in a broad spectrum of family medicine skills.

The skills, known as the six core competencies, a resident gets trained on are: patient care, practice-based learning, interpersonal and communication skills, medical knowledge, professionalism and systems based practice.

"The residents rotate through orthopedics, obstetrics, gynecology and sports medicine for a chance to learn the core competencies," said Vitrikas. "We grade the residents on each of these competencies and constantly evaluate how the residents develop their skills to be a full-fledged family physician."

Each rotation is one month in duration.

"In their first year, they only see clinic once a week. As they progress through the years, their clinic time will increase. By their third year, they will work four to five half days a week in the clinic and the remaining time will be devoted to the specialized rotation they're on."

During clinic, the residents take care of patients receiving outpatient care.

"By giving them this broad breadth of experience, we're ensuring they will be able to practice wherever the Air Force might send them." Vitrikas said. "If the doctor encounters a patient with a symptom they don't know the answer to, they will have the opportunity to look for it. Every patient seen is a potential learning case."

Capt. Adam Hebdon, a third-year resident said that the training has taught him a lot.

"I feel like it's great training. I have a very broad exposure to medicine. I feel very comfortable with a lot of procedures.

"There have been days where I have delivered babies in the middle of the night and been admitting patients into the hospital, and then I'll go to clinic in the afternoon and will be taking care of kids and elderly patients, doing injections or other procedures in one day. In a 24-hour period, I'm running the whole gambit of medicine. I'm doing everything, which is exactly what I want to be doing."