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The mission of the UPMC Horizon Family Medicine Residency Program is to train residents in a small-town and rural environment to become exceptional Family Medicine Physicians and to meet the needs of the communities of Mercer and Lawrence Counties while customizing the residency experience for each resident to meet their respective career goals. UPMC Horizon provides quality, patient-centered care across all ages and in any clinical setting. Our program features direct, one-on-one interaction with specialists as well as a strong team of experienced, passionate family medicine faculty. Patient care and resident education are equal partners in the mission of the residency.
UPMC Horizon Family Medicine Residency Program’s Family Health Center (FHC) is Shenango Valley Family Medicine (SVFM). The FHC, located adjacent to the hospital, allows the residents and faculty to better meet the needs of the local community by improving access to primary care and providing a comprehensive medical home.
The FHC provides comprehensive medical care to patients of all ages by a team of health providers: Family Medicine Physicians, Clinical Pharmacist, Medical Assistants, Nurses, Care Managers and Behavioral Health provider. The facility offers 13 exam rooms, procedure rooms, triage space, workstations, consultation rooms, faculty offices and a conference room for weekly didactics.
Our program is a 4-4-4 community - oriented Family Medicine Residency, located in Mercer County, Pennsylvania 67 miles southeast of Cleveland, OH, 60 miles north of Pittsburgh, Pa. and 89 miles south of Erie, Pa. Our graduates serve rural to urban communities in Western Pennsylvania and throughout the United States in fields ranging from traditional primary care, all outpatient, hospitalist, ER, and urgent care.
The first year provides incoming residents with solid introduction to the breadth and diversity of family medicine. It includes a series of inpatient rotations at UPMC Horizon (internal medicine, surgery, obstetrics, and emergency medicine), one month of inpatient pediatrics at UPMC Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh.
Call during the intern year is dependent upon the rotation. On the inpatient medicine rotation, interns take in-house call during the daytime every other weekend. The rest of the intern class alternates for the other weekends. Weekend call outside of the inpatient rotation is 1 in 6 weekends. During the OB month, interns may take call up to once a week. Call can be assigned during inpatient pediatrics at times.
Residents also spend one half-day session, per week, in the Family Medicine Center.
The second and third-year curriculum offers a broader array of experiences, along with the required rotations by the ACGME, in order to achieve a greater educational experience in the depths of family medicine.
Second year residents spend 3 half-day sessions, on average, per week in the office and third year residents spend 3-4 half-day sessions, depending upon the rotation.
Additional continuity experiences in the second and third year include:
There is no in-house overnight call in our program. PGY-2 and PGY-3 residents perform in-house call until 10 p.m. on weeknights averaging 3 call nights/month. The senior resident on the service covers every other weekend until 10 p.m. on the inpatient block with the other senior residents alternating weekends. Outside of your inpatient block, senior residents average 4 weekends/year.
We are able to utilize the full benefits of our large tertiary-care system to access electives in many fields with appropriate advance planning. We strongly believe in the benefits of customizing your residency experience to achieve your future practice goals.
The continuity training experience, within the continuity of care family practice clinic, provides the resident with a training environment equivalent to that of a private practice.
The continuity training experience will develop those skills and experiences necessary to give the resident the competence and confidence to provide exceptional patient care.
The goals of the continuity training experience are to provide:
Residents are often recruited to the local community to continue the compassionate and comprehensive care they have been taught.
Options include:
Applications to set up an audition or shadowing experience will be accepted starting March 1st. Please contact the Family Medicine Residency Coordinator at UPMC Horizon via email at foltzaa@upmc.edu with your completed form and updated CV.
In the meantime, please complete the paperwork on the Medical Student Orientation page.
Shadow opportunities are available for medical students, a max of three (3) days is approved at UPMC Horizon. If you wish to shadow, please complete the paperwork on the Job Shadow page and email to foltzaa@upmc.edu.
All applicants must apply through ERAS® (the Electronic Residency Application Service. Only these applications will be reviewed. No paper applications are accepted. Applications are accepted from September 15th until December 20th. We sponsor J1 and H1B visas.
Criteria for selection for an interview:
The final selection is made by the Program Director and Faculty after review of the entire application. We receive greater than 150 applications per residency slot. Therefore, we cannot respond to inquiries regarding your application status. All applications are reviewed.
If you are selected to interview with our program, you will receive an invitation via ERAS email from our Recruitment Coordinator.
UPMC Horizon’s Family Medicine applicants will be invited to a dinner with the family medicine residents the evening before the interview day. Applicants may stay at the nearby Hampton Inn, West Middlesex, for the evening, free of charge.
Interview days will begin around 8 a.m. with applicants participating in a portion of the core didactic lectures followed by a tour of the hospital, continuity clinic, and the Shenango Valley community. After returning to the hospital, there will be a lunch followed by individual interviews with a faculty panel and the interview day will end around 1pm.
PGY 3 – Residency Class of 2022 (PDF)
PGY 2 – Residency Class of 2023 (PDF)
PGY 1 – Residency Class of 2024 (PDF)
6:45 a.m. – 7:00 a.m. – Sign-out from the night PA, determine which cell phones you will use, communicating with nursing main desk about attending for the day, resident caring for each patient, and which cell phone you can be reached at
7:00 a.m. – 8:00 a.m. – Pre-charting and reviewing imaging, morning labs and overnight nursing notes
8:00 a.m. – 9:30 a.m. – Go visit each patient that is under your care in the hospital (Interns are limited to 5 patients initially)
9:30 a.m. – 10:30 a.m. – Table rounds with attending and PharmD; discuss each patient and your plan for them. Your plan is then critiqued, this allows for excellent hands-on learning directly from both the attending physician and PharmD.
10:30 a.m. – 12:30 p.m. – Multidisciplinary rounds including the IM team, PharmD, Social Work and Case manager. We round to see each patient and further communicate our plan for each patient to the team on rounds.
12:30 p.m. – 1:00 p.m. – After multidisciplinary rounds we have a good idea of the exact plan for the patient, so we take this time to place orders, complete discharge orders/medication reconciliations for those discharged patients
1:00 p.m. – 2:00 p.m. – Lunch, spending money for the Cafeteria is provided by UPMC and we utilize this often for lunch as there are multiple options with each day!
2:00 p.m. – 5:00 p.m. – Follow up on labs and imaging ordered for the day, coordinating with social work, admissions, answering nursing calls, responding to codes if they occur
5:00 p.m. – Senior residents leave after signing out to the senior resident covering long call for the evening
5:00 p.m. – 7:00 p.m. – Admissions, reevaluating patient if needed, reviewing lab orders for the next day
7:00 p.m. – Intern shift ends
7:00 p.m. – 10:00 p.m. – Long call senior covers the service, admissions, answering nursing calls, responding to codes if they occur
10:00 p.m. – Sign-out to the night PA or NP. This includes recapping acute events throughout the day, going over any pending orders or labs, and giving more detailed report on acutely ill patients.
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