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Director:
Charles
Vega, M.D. |
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Training Centers |
UC Irvine Medical Center
This 500-bed,
comprehensive medical facility serves as the principle
teaching and research hospital for the College of
Medicine at the University of California, Irvine. It
offers a full complement of in-patient and out-patient
medical and surgical services. It also operates one of
the busiest emergency rooms in Orange County and is
designated as a level one tertiary trauma referral
center.
The Department of Family Medicine maintains its
own inpatient service at UC Irvine hospital. This service,
staffed by Family Medicine residents and faculty, cares
for medicine, obstetrics, and pediatrics admissions from
all the department's physicians. In addition to this
service, residents also rotate through inpatient
medicine service as interns and through outpatient
specialty clinics as senior residents.
In 2000, UC Irvine hospital received a commitment
from the state to rebuild a new hospital on the same
grounds. Planning is underway to make this new facility
completely state-of-the-art, and construction should
begin within the next several years.
Western Medical Center
Western Medical Center is a 400-bed, full
service, private community hospital and trauma center
located in the Santa Ana-Tustin area. Its staff features
a full complement of family physicians, internists,
pediatricians, and specialists from all disciplines. The
hospital provides full medical and surgical in-patient
services including adult and child intensive care units.
The hospital also has an emergency room which serves as
a local trauma center. Our residents are supervised by
the hospital's staff physicians while on rotations in
emergency medicine, pediatrics, surgery, and internal
medicine. This community hospital contrasts nicely with
the training received at our other training hospitals
and provides the residents with a realistic view of
in-patient medicine similar to what they may experience
in their own future practices.
Long Beach Veterans Administration Medical Center
The Long Beach Veterans Administration Medical
Center has been a long time affiliate of the University
of California and is one of the major teaching hospitals
in the University of California, Irvine network. This
1000 bed facility is one of the largest in the nation
and boasts a diverse patient population, an outstanding
clinical faculty, and a diversity of in-patient and
out-patient teaching resources. Our residents currently
do rotations in internal medicine, the coronary care
unit, and dermatology, at the hospital. The Long Beach
Veterans Administration Medical Center is an important
resource within our training program.
Family Practice Center
The primary family practice center for our
residency program is the UC Irvine Family Health Center
located in Santa Ana, California. This 52,000 square
foot facility was inaugurated in January 1996. Located
in close proximity to UC Irvine Medical Center and our
previous clinic, this important facility features a
unique partnership that combines service to a
underserved population in a setting that complements our
teaching activities. Our clinic patients reflect the
ethnic and cultural diversity of Orange County. They
provide our residents with a challenging mix of medical,
social, and economic problems to deal with.
Our clinic is located in an area designated as
a health physician shortage area and a medically
underserved area. Because of this, the clinic is
recognized as a National Health Service Corps site. Our
activities at the clinic continue a long-standing
tradition for which we have acquired an outstanding
local and national reputation for our work with the
medically underserved.
The clinic is fully staffed with nursing and
office personnel. There are twenty-seven exam rooms and
three fully equipped urgent care rooms. Three procedure
rooms, equipped with state of the art equipment to train
residents in common office procedures.
Additional resources within the FHC, such as
conference rooms, behavioral science consulting rooms,
and a large space for the residents to write up their
cases and discuss them with faculty, are available. Two
exam rooms are fully equipped for videotaping patient
encounters. Multiple personal computers are available to
the residents at FHC. All PC's at UC Irvine offer full
Internet access with free subscriptions to resources
such as MDConsult, PubMed, and the Cochrane Database.
Daily conferences are an important part of the
curriculum and are held at the Family Health Center and
other sites. These teaching sessions include behavioral
science conferences, didactic lectures, case
presentations, practice management and managed care
lectures, and resident and staff meetings.
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