Community Health Network

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About Our Program

Welcome to the Community Health Network Family Medicine Residency Program.

This Web site will give you information on many aspects of our program, from the philosophical to the concrete. We would like to highlight a few of the factors that make Community an excellent place to learn family medicine.

Although we hope you will find our Web site helpful, it cannot tell you who we really are. We encourage you to communicate with us or our residents. Our residents are truly your best source of information and our greatest assets. Please send us an e-mail, give us a phone call or plan a visit to see first-hand why we are so enthusiastic about our program and its future. Our experience has shown that the better people get to know us, the more likely they are to want to join our family.

General information

• We are affiliated with a community-based, full-service hospital. It’s an environment we feel is ideal for instruction in family medicine.
• We have an unopposed program, which means family medicine is the only residency program at our hospital. We currently have over 20 residents in our program and have been in existence for over 30 years.
• Our core faculty consists of six full-time and one part-time family physicians, a behavioral scientist, a practice administrator, a residency coordinator and a nursing administrator. An OB/GYN and two pediatricians are also part of our staff. Volunteer family physicians from the community, specialist physicians and clinical instructors in other fields round out the faculty.
• We care about the development of our residents and their families as human beings. A generous salary and benefits package, reasonable call schedule, ample vacation and meeting time and residency retreats are some of the ways we encourage personal and professional growth.
• Our program has a long track record of excellence as evidenced by its tradition of success in the National Residency Matching Program and our graduates’ success on ABFP Certification Exams.
• We assist our residents in looking outside of and beyond their three years of residency. Involvement in a variety of activities in organized medicine enhances your personal and professional growth. Our practice management curriculum is strong and geared toward making the transition to independent practice as easy as possible.
• We are based in Indiana, which grants full licensure after one year of residency. Thus, residents may “moonlight” beginning in the second year.

Goals

The Family Medicine Residency Program at Community Health Network exists and is organized to prepare qualified medical school graduates to become competent family physicians, possessing all the knowledge and skills necessary for a productive career in family medicine. Our goals are that the graduating resident will:

1. Demonstrate clinical expertise in the diagnosis and management of medical problems presented in practice.
2. Provide individuals and their families continuing comprehensive care.
3. Keep his or her professional life in perspective, balancing commitment to patient care with that of personal, family and community life.
4. Demonstrate in practice an understanding of the behavioral, emotional, social and environmental components in the care of families.
5. Have a clear understanding of the limits of his or her own competence, demonstrate the appropriate use of medical consultants and other medical and community resources, and display skill as coordinator of the health care team.
6. Understand the communication and counseling skills necessary to promote satisfactory physician-patient relationships to the end that health problems are identified and solved.
7. Manage his or her office practice in a manner that promotes efficiency, financial soundness and patient satisfaction.
8. Be cognizant of the cost of health care and the relative benefits of diagnostic and therapeutic capabilities.
9. Be knowledgeable about hospital and community resources, as well as the larger health care system, and participate in their improvement.
10. Be competent to serve as an advocate for the patient within the health care system.
11. Pursue a lifelong program of systematic learning and demonstrate a professional curiosity resulting in ongoing critical evaluation and use of new knowledge, skills and techniques.
12. Practice methods of self-evaluation and pursue measures in ongoing self-improvement based on needs.
13. Be aware of the different forces acting upon the health care industry so that he or she may be better prepared to practice medicine in a changing political and economical environment.