Family & Community Medicine Residency Program

Family & Community Medicine Residency Program

Welcome to the Family & Community Medicine Residency Program at North Country HealthCare! On behalf of our talented and diverse group of providers, administrative and clinical staff, and our governing board, I am excited to introduce you to our new program, based in Flagstaff, Arizona. Family physicians provide the majority of care for America’s underserved and rural populations, and our primary goal in establishing this training program is to graduate exceptional family physicians who will increase the primary care workforce in northern Arizona.

The NARBHA Institute Family & Community Medicine Program provides physicians with the training, skills, and cultural humility they need to establish a successful and sustainable practice in northern Arizona.

Program Overview

Years in the making, North Country HealthCare and the Colorado Plateau Center for Health Professions launched a new family medicine residency program for northern Arizona in 2020. The need has never been higher, the solution never clearer and the opportunity never better to develop the only Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME) physician residency program in Arizona with a community health center as the sponsoring institution. Unique not only in its teaching model but also its location, it is one of the only ACGME residency programs north of Phoenix and the only program owned by a regional AHEC center.

About North Country HealthCare

North Country HealthCare is the primary community health center in its region. In 1991, a small group of doctors and nurses, health and human service representatives and consumers worked together to establish the Flagstaff Community Free Clinic. In 1996, the clinic transitioned from a volunteer organization into a state and federally funded community health center. Today, North Country HealthCare serves 11 communities and over 50,000 patients across northern Arizona, providing quality medical care to all.

North Country HealthCare’s mission is to provide accessible, affordable, comprehensive, quality primary healthcare in an atmosphere of respect, dignity, and cultural sensitivity. The health and well-being of patients and community alike are promoted through direct services, training/education, outreach and advocacy.

North Country HealthCare provides a wide range of patient and family-focused health services, including integrated interprofessional team-based care to provide high quality healthcare. North Country Healthcare has a very active obstetrics program; our providers deliver more than 50% of newborns in Flagstaff annually. Behavioral medicine and clinical pharmacy are integrated with primary care at our residency and other clinical sites.

The services offered by North Country HealthCare are:

• Primary Care & Family Medicine
• Pediatrics
• OB/GYN
• Clinical Pharmacy
• Behavioral Health
• Dental Care
• Physical Therapy
• Telemedicine
• HIV and Hepatitis C Care
• Community Outreach Programs

*Services vary by location

Mission and Goals of the Residency Program

The family medicine residency program seeks to extend the mission of North Country HealthCare in providing accessible, comprehensive, quality affordable care in a primary healthcare setting across northern Arizona. Our goals are to prepare a group of culturally humble, skilled, and dedicated family physicians for comprehensive primary care practice in rural and frontier northern Arizona.  North Country has affiliations with A.T. Still University School of Osteopathic Medicine in Arizona, The University of Arizona College of Medicine – Phoenix, and The University of Arizona College of Medicine – Tucson.

Northern Arizona Service Region

North Country HealthCare’s service region consists of Apache County, Coconino County, Gila County, Mohave County, Navajo County, and the northern part of Yavapai County, occupying some 53,300 square miles across the northern third of Arizona. This land includes the largest ponderosa pine forest in the world, the stunning beauty of the Grand Canyon, the Great Basin Desert in the north and east, and the Mojave Desert in the west. The regional population is over 500,000, with a racial/ethnic breakdown of 54% Non-Hispanic White, 26% Native American/American Indian, 12% Hispanic/Latinx, 6% Black/African American, and 2% Asian. With a population of 70,000 people, Flagstaff is the area’s largest city.

In the northeast corner of the state, the Navajo Nation occupies 27,000 square miles of the service region, about the size of West Virginia. Other major American Indian reservations in the service region are the Hopi Reservation and the Fort Apache Reservation for the White Mountain Apache Tribe.

Rotation Sites

North Country HealthCare’s Flagstaff 4th Street location is the main teaching site of the family medicine residency program. With its diverse patient population, it is an ideal setting for learning, coupled with a full service pharmacy, a dental practice, and laboratory services.

North Country has several community health programs to serve the unique needs of its patients. These programs include the Integrated Behavioral Health Care, Well Woman HealthCheck Program, Ryan White Part B HIV/AIDS Program, Health Start, Healthy Steps, Northern Arizona Center Against Sexual Assault (NACASA), and the Radiation Exposure Screening and Education Program (RESEP).

North Country HealthCare’s Williams location serves a community of ~3,500 people, located 30 miles west of Flagstaff. This unique community is known as a gateway to Grand Canyon National Park via the Grand Canyon Railway.  A new outpatient clinic building was occupied in 2020 and includes an urgent care/walk-in clinic that is open 7 days/week, onsite physical therapy, dental clinic, x-ray and behavioral medicine services. Residents will participate in urgent care at this site.

Flagstaff Medical Center, a 267-bed community hospital and regional referral medical center, is where the family medicine adult inpatient, newborn care, labor and delivery and surgical experiences will be completed.

Kingman Regional Medical Center in the western Arizona city of Kingman, is a 235-bed community hospital and regional medical center where emergency medicine rotations will occur. The emergency department has over 50,000 visits a year.

Tuba City Regional Healthcare Corporation is an 80-bed general hospital on the Navajo Reservation. It is a busy medical center that serves as a referral center for the Navajo and Hopi communities and offers a wide variety of specialty services. Rural rotations will be offered here, along with elective rotations.

Banner Children’s at Desert is located in Mesa, Arizona and is the site of a total of 8 weeks of Inpatient Pediatrics and 4 weeks of Pediatric Emergency Department rotations. Residents will work directly with a pediatric hospitalist team with a focus on gaining experience managing common pediatric illnesses.

Coconino County Public Health Services District, which is just down the street from North Country HealthCare in Flagstaff, is where residents will complete their community medicine rotation.

Flagstaff Surgical Associates, located in Flagstaff, Arizona is the site of the surgical rotation. Residents will work closely with surgeons and will focus on the fundamentals of surgical cases.

Northern Arizona HealthCare Orthopedics, located in Flagstaff, Arizona is the site of orthopedic and sports medicine rotations. Residents will work closely with orthopedists and will focus on the fundamentals of orthopedic cases.

North Country HealthCare Grand Canyon, is located in the spectacular Grand Canyon National Park and provides comprehensive medical services to residents, seasonal workers, and visitors, including an urgent care.