RESIDENTS & NEW PHYSICIANS By Peter Graber NCAFP Communications
N C ' S R E S I D E N C Y P RO G R A M S
Duke Family Medicine Residency to Launch New Rural Training Track With the healthcare needs of North Carolina’s rural communities growing by the year, Duke University’s Family Medicine Residency is proud to announce that it will formally launch a new rural training track later this year. The new track has been accredited by the ACGME Residency Review Committee and has recently MATCHed two new interns slated to begin this coming July. The track is a collaboration between Duke Primary Care Oxford and Maria Parham Health, a Duke LifePoint hospital, based in Henderson, North Carolina. NCAFP Past President Dr. Thomas Koinis (1997) will be serving as founding Residency Director for the new track. Dr. Koinis will be complemented by Drs. Eric Buenviaje and Alexa Namba who will be serving as Associate Program Directors and Medical Instructor, respectively. According to Koinis, the new option comes at a much-needed time. “Our rural areas in North Carolina and throughout the country are struggling with finding Family
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Medicine and other primary care physicians to serve their communities,” noted Koinis. “I am very excited to offer this rural environment as a place for residents to train and develop as family physicians, capable of caring for folks in underserved and under-resourced areas. One of my major goals will be to have residents learn and experience the joy and satisfaction of rural Family Medicine.” According to Koinis, the effort is a culmination of several years of work between Duke’s Department of Family Medicine & Community Health and Duke Primary Care. Dr. Koinis was quick to note that Duke’s Drs. John Anderson, Viviana Martinez-Bianchi, Anthony Viera and Greg Swain each played instrumental roles in developing and launching the track, as did the tremendous organizational and financial support of the Duke Health System. Interns of the new track will experience the same Year One curriculum as residents in Duke’s core Family Medicine Residency program. They will then serve the majority of their second and third years with continuity patients from Duke Primary Care Oxford and staff in-patient services at Maria Parham Health in Henderson. The track’s founding interns will be Drs. Rashmi Jyotsna Saincher of Saint George’s University in London, and Jessica Yeary Sanders from the University of Texas at Houston. Dr. Koinis noted that the timing of ACGME’s accreditation approval happened only days prior to the formal opening of the 2021 MATCH season. All in all, the program was able to draw from a strong applicant pool and couldn’t be more pleased with its founding interns.
The North Carolina Family Physician
