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Ultimately, we believe a family physician must be the consummate physician. Today’s family physician must be able to manage the biopsychosocial aspects of patients they serve, they must be comfortable with behavioral and mental health, they must develop and maintain the clinical and procedural skills required to deliver the widest breadth of medical care, and they must understand and be able to accommodate the challenges inherent in ambulatory medicine. Quite simply, the family physician is the doctor you want when you or your family members need care. A CHRISTUS Santa Rosa family physician is just that doctor.

We believe family physicians must be critical thinkers and be able to efficiently assess medical information for accuracy, relevance, validity and clinical applicability. Our program includes formal instruction, with hands-on exercises and information mastery resulting in confidence and skill with regard to staying current with medical literature. We also have regular sessions on evidenced-based medicine practice, point of care decision making and formal journal clubs. We want our graduates to know how to ask and follow a research question, how to obtain data, and how to evaluate this data. This is accomplished by a three-year longitudinal exercise resulting in a completed research project. Residents also have the opportunity to assist in writing peer-reviewed articles and case reports.

We believe family physicians bring value to communities they serve beyond their medical knowledge. We expect them to become community advocates and leaders. Graduates complete our program with the ability and the understanding to integrate needs and knowledge in the development of solutions to community problems. During the course of our program our residents develop and implement at least one (often more) service project or educational program in support of our local community. Additionally, our emphasis on leadership skills leads many of our residents to assume positions on hospital committees, local professional organizations, and, in some cases, state and national professional organizations. Our track record is unmatched in this regard.

We believe family physicians have an educational role in the community and in the profession. Through educational activities designed to teach the skill of teaching, our residents are taught how to teach: at the bedside, in the clinic, in the lecture hall, and in public venues. We expect our residents to assume responsibility for a significant percentage of our didactic program by development and delivery, lecture, clinical pathology correlation presentations, morbidity and mortality presentations, and inpatient teaching rounds.