Residency Program

Program Director's Welcome: 

Thank you for visiting our Family Medicine Residency home page. Here at UCI, we are privileged to care for some of the most diverse communities in the nation, including some of the most disadvantaged patients in Orange County. It is in service of these ethnically diverse underserved communities that we seek competent and compassionate residency candidates who will learn to deliver patient-centered, culturally appropriate care within the context of each individual’s background and environment.  We believe in health as a fundamental human right, and we foster advocacy with the aim of health equity and social justice.

We offer a balance between academics and community medicine. Our residents’ clinical home is within a federally qualified health center (FQHC) located in Santa Ana.  Residents also participate in the rigorous learning environments of the UCI Medical Center as well as Children’s Hospital of Orange County and the Veterans Administration Hospital in Long Beach.

Our strength is our people!  Our faculty have diverse interests and talents in areas such as integrative health, inpatient medicine, reproductive health, maternity care, sports medicine, underserved medicine, global health, and medical humanities. We are specialists in comprehensive holistic care, and we love teaching and sharing our knowledge and skills with our residents.

We prepare all of our residents to become well-rounded excellent family physicians to care for patients across the lifespan.  We also provide innovative programs to enable our residents to develop specialized skills such as the following

• Program in Medical Education for the Latino Community (PRIME-LC) Track, dedicated to training physicians to serve the Latinx community as a physician leader and/or academic faculty. It is the first track of its kind in the country that aims for advocacy, diversity and inclusion, health equity, and social justice.
• Integrative Medicine for the Underserved Track, a specialized curriculum that emphasizes the use of natural therapies such as nutrition, exercise, stress relaxation techniques, herbal supplements together with conventional medical treatments to improve the health and well-being of the underserved communities we serve. 
• Sports Medicine Track, developed to provide education, training, and exposure to primary care sports medicine experiences with a focus on ultrasound-guided procedures to provide a strong sports medicine foundation for those who are considering a primary care sports medicine fellowship or future primary care practice with significant community sports and event coverage.
• Group Medical Visits, for diabetes, weight management, Down syndrome, and acupuncture.
• Teaching Kitchen, with state-of-the-art design to teach our patients healthful options in meal preparation.
• Geriatrics Fellowship, a one-year comprehensive, advanced training program designed to prepare physicians to care for older adults.
• Sports Medicine Fellowship, a one-year curriculum in non-surgical musculoskeletal evaluation and treatments, the evaluation and management of concussions, and the prevention and treatment of activity-related injuries and illnesses.
• School Outreach Program, allowing our residents to provide clinical care, health education, and mentoring in local K-12 schools.
• UCI Outreach Clinics, a student-run free clinic and community medicine rotation during which residents serve as preceptors for the students of UCI SOM as they see patients at the Lestonnac Free Clinic in Orange.

We help our residents to achieve their full potential, not only as clinicians but also as physician leaders who will advocate for some of the most disadvantaged patients of all ages and backgrounds.  We believe in an interdisciplinary team approach to tackling complex health challenges.  We have a double-boarded family physician/psychiatrist leading our mental health clinic, social workers providing counseling in English and Spanish, a population health team who follows up on patients with chronic diseases, as well as multiple specialty clinics such as sports medicine, contraception, prenatal, minor surgery, integrative medicine, pharmacy and acupuncture.

At the same time, we want to foster a safe learning environment that promotes self-care and well-being so that you are able to draw upon your own strengths to thrive and handle the challenges that you face during residency and beyond.  We have a community psychiatrist who does semi-annual check-ins with our residents, and are available for drop-in counseling at any time.  Our priority is to ensure that you feel supported in your endeavor to become the excellent family physicians that you aspire to and envision. 

To learn more about our faculty and current residents, please email Linh Nguyen at nguyel12@hs.uci.edu.

We hope to see you here!

Emily Dow, MD

Professor and Residency Program Director