Letter from the Residency Director
Greetings from the Chief Residents

The Family Medicine Residency at St. John's was founded in 1973.
We offer a three-year, university affiliated family medicine residency sponsored by a large, active community teaching hospital. Six residents enter the program each year. The faculty consists of eight family physicians, a psychologist, and two clinical pharmacists. The faculty and residents practice in a state-of-the-art facility located five to 10 minutes from the Medical Center. This enhances the residents' learning experience by ensuring ready availability of faculty at all times, and by the modeling which occurs by having residents and faculty seeing patients side-by-side in the same office suite.

The first priority of this program is the optimal education of Family Medicine residents by both faculty within the department and specialists in a wide variety of disciplines. Over the course of three years, this education moves more from the inpatient to the outpatient setting, progressively modeling the role of a practicing family physician.

Education is also provided in a variety of inpatient and outpatient settings as described in the curriculum section.

Letter from the Residency Director

Thank you for your interest in Mercy Family Medicine Residency. Since assuming the role of program director in 1999, I have enjoyed seeing our program continue to role model excellence in teaching, curriculum, and office practice.

Family physicians are being asked to lead America into a healthier 21st century, and I am excited about training physicians to meet that challenge.

As you review our program and compare it to others, ask the following six questions:

Is this a program that offers a variety of learning experiences in family medicine?

Do the faculty have a commitment to teaching?

Does the hospital have "state of the art" facilities?

Does the support team including office staff, hospital personnel, and medical staff promote a high level of patient and physician satisfaction?

Do you feel that the area is an exciting place to live and work?

Does the program have a philosophy of compassion and commitment to both its patients and its employees?

We believe that the Mercy Family Medicine Residency at St. John's Mercy Medical Center fulfills these ideals, and we believe that we can offer you an excellent opportunity to become the physician that you hope to be.

Grant Hoekzema, MD, Residency Director