Areas of Emphasis and Additional Opportunities

All residents receive comprehensive education in obstetrics, women’s health, and newborn care. Residents who plan to include prenatal care and deliveries in their future practice may pursue the Enhanced Obstetrics Pathway. 

Participation in the Enhanced Obstetrics Pathway is ideally identified early in the PGY-1 year. Residents in this pathway receive additional continuity experience, increased assignments in obstetric clinic, and dedicated training in newborn resuscitation. These experiences provide greater depth and help prepare residents to incorporate obstetric and newborn care into family medicine practice after graduation.

Point-of-care ultrasound (POCUS) is incorporated longitudinally throughout the curriculum and reinforced through a dedicated POCUS rotation. Residents receive hands-on instruction and apply ultrasound skills in both inpatient and ambulatory settings. 

The curriculum emphasizes appropriate image acquisition, clinical interpretation and integration of ultrasound findings into patient care, allowing residents to develop practical bedside skills they can incorporate into future practice.

Residents develop procedural skills through hands-on clinical experience, dedicated training and focused procedure clinics. Education emphasizes appropriate patient selection, informed consent, technical performance, recognition of complications, aftercare and documentation. 

Dedicated procedure days provide protected time for hands-on instruction and supervised practice. Most procedural training focuses on skills commonly performed in outpatient family medicine, including dermatologic, musculoskeletal, women’s health and general office procedures. Residents also receive exposure to selected hospital-based procedures through their inpatient, emergency and critical care experiences.

The integrative medicine curriculum is available to every interested resident through a partnership with the Andrew Weil Center for Integrative Medicine at the University of Arizona. Dr. Batra leads the curriculum locally. 

The program combines structured learning with practical approaches that residents can incorporate into comprehensive primary care. Residents who successfully complete the curriculum earn a certificate in Integrative Medicine from the University of Arizona.

Residents may continue developing their osteopathic diagnostic and treatment skills through clinical OMM experiences and elective opportunities. 

These experiences allow residents to incorporate osteopathic principles and hands-on treatment into the care of patients with a variety of acute and chronic conditions.

Optional rural experiences allow interested residents to learn alongside family physicians in smaller communities and gain exposure to the broad clinical responsibilities of rural practice. Residents experience how physicians adapt their skills to local needs, available resources and the realities of caring for patients across settings in a rural community. 

These experiences complement the program’s tertiary-care training and help residents prepare for careers in communities where family physicians often provide broad scope of care.

Residents participate in a longitudinal long-term care experience during their PGY-2 and PGY-3 years. They provide hands-on care to patients in a long-term care setting while developing skills in chronic disease management, functional assessment, cognitive impairment, medication management, goals-of-care discussions and interprofessional care. 

A structured long-term care and geriatrics curriculum complements the clinical experience, as residents may also care for these patients when they are hospitalized. This experience provides a valuable opportunity to understand transitions of care and maintain continuity across inpatient and long-term care settings.