About the Program

Program Highlights

The Family and Preventive Medicine Residency Program combines curricular elements of a three-year family medicine residency and a three-year preventive medicine residency into an efficient training program of four years. During the first year, residents complete a Family Medicine Internship but also have set aside time to begin coursework towards their master in public health (MPH). The second year remains family medicine centered, but also includes a preventive medicine rotation and further MPH coursework. During the third and fourth years there is an equal mix of family and preventive medicine rotations and MPH coursework as well as elective time.

The Master in Public Health Degree

Family and Preventive Medicine rotations are modified to allow residents to complete some MPH coursework in a condensed classroom format and other courses in an online program. Typical MPH class work offered on a quarterly schedule will also be available during the third and fourth years to allow residents to pursue their MPH area of emphasis. Loma Linda University School of Public Health offers an MPH focus in the following six areas: epidemiology and biostatistics, health administration, health promotion, environmental health, global health, and nutrition.

Because LLUMC offers an annual tuition benefit to all employees, approximately 40 quarter hours of the required 56-60 to complete an MPH will be cost free.

Lifestyle Medicine Track

Medicine as currently practiced has developed out of an acute care model that has been significantly influenced by the pharmaceutical industry. The majority of primary care visits are now centered around chronic disease care for illnesses such as obesity, diabetes, hyperlipidemia, and hypertension. A new care paradigm is needed to address this shift away from acute care and towards chronic care. The lifestyle medicine track addresses this in two ways.

First, as discussed in "The Future of Family Medicine," we are exposing residents to new models of clinical care. We have developed proven excellence in clinical quality improvement. We use an electronic medical record. We emphasize systems-based, team-oriented, and technologically savvy approaches to care. Our patient centered focus on wholeness and healing is enhanced by our application of multidisciplinary clinics and expertise in care coordination and continuity.

Second, we spend extra time emphasizing natural, non-pharmaceutical approaches to health and healing. We take seriously the evidence that demonstrates the first approach to most chronic diseases should be lifestyle related. We use specific tools that support patients and communities in better nutrition, physical activity, stress management, and relational and spiritual wellness. We do use integrative, pharmaceutical, and surgical approaches, but our foundation is improved lifestyles.

Lifestyle medicine is emphasized in several ways: our faculty teach it in their precepting, our clinics model it, a specific didactic series highlights it, and we offer electives that expose residents to office-based, residential, and community-based lifestyle medicine programs.

Global Health Track

Medicine as currently practiced side-steps the massive health-care needs of much of the world. Addressing these needs requires physicians who immerse themselves in other cultures, committing years or lifetimes to working in and improving health-care systems. Other physicians dedicate themselves to global health by providing recurrent short-term services. The global health track prepares residents to participate in both of these approaches.

The core residency emphasis on both superior primary care skills as well as systems approaches to health care offers an excellent template for work in global settings. In the MPH focused on global health, cutting edge professors provide classes that infuse specific knowledge, skills, and attitudes useful in international arenas.

Electives during the second, third, and fourth years allow residents to participate in international health experiences that will help tailor their ongoing training, maximizing their ability to make a positive impact on the global health challenges.

Year by Year Curriculum

Specific rotations experienced by residents each training year are summarized in block diagrams. Elective time during the third and fourth years can be used to pursue one of the specific tracks summarized above or for additional learning in other areas of interest and value to the resident.