Mission

To produce Family Medicine Physicians who are subject matter experts in all matters of Inpatient Medicine by making them capable to function well within a critical care environment of a deployed or military treatment facility setting.

Vision

Support every Army field hospital with a Family Medicine Hospitalist, in preparation for the next conflict. Support Army Family Medicine Residency with a Family Medicine Hospitalist Faculty, in addition to placing a well-trained Family Medicine Hospitalist at every military treatment facility with an ICU, but without an intensivist.

Aims

Educate Family Medicine Physicians who have a special interest in inpatient medicine by preparing them to work in any primary care inpatient environment to include Medicine/Surgery, Critical Care, Pediatrics and Nursery.

We have academics every other week, we discuss a recent practice changing article. We also spend academic time preparing and delivering lectures to the Family Medicine Residency, including four simulations each year.

Each Fellow will complete 26 weeks of inpatient on-service weeks to mirror a typical hospitalist schedule, including 13 weeks of Critical Care, four weeks of Inpatient, five weeks of Nights, and four weeks of Inpatient Pediatrics. The 26 off-service weeks are spent doing supplementary training to include Obstetrics, Nursery, Anesthesia, Procedures, and Research.

Our one-year program does not offer elective rotations.

We do not have call responsibilities.

We have guest speakers during academics each year to learn more about opportunities that exist for hospitalist within the miliary.

If these courses are not completed prior to arrival, they will be scheduled during in-processing:

• Advanced Cardiac Life Support
• Pediatric Advanced Life Support
• Advanced Life Support in Obstetrics
• Advanced Trauma Life Support
• Neonatal Resuscitation Program

We conduct simulation during in-processing to train on Ventilators as well as Central line, Intubation, Point of Care Ultrasound (POCUS) models. We also teach simulation to the family medicine residencies in all of Defense Health Agency.

Each fellow is expected to have three academic credits during their 12 months of training. These credits require one Process Improvement/Quality Improvement project in addition to two other academic credits, which can come from national presentations or local research competitions.

Each fellow is expected to conduct or participate in one PI/QI project during fellowship.

Each fellow will have the opportunity to present on a national stage at the Uniformed Services Academy of Family Physicians. The fellowship also has a strong relationship with American Academy of Family Physicians and have presented at every Family Medicine Experience since the fellowship’s inception in 2015.

• Womack Army Medical Center is the core site and serves as the location for Inpatient Medicine, Nocturnist Shifts, Nursery, Anesthesia, Obstetrics.
• Cape Fear Valley Medical Center serves as the primary site for all Critical Care and Inpatient Pediatric rotations.

We accept Family Medicine residents for formal GME rotations as elective rotations in their program.

All candidates should interview. Each applicant should reach out to the program at any point to schedule an interview during July through the middle of October of the year they would be applying for fellowship. The fellowship will conduct virtual interviews if you are unable to travel to Fort Liberty for an interview.

Program graduates do not take a specialty board exam. American Board of Family Medicine is currently reconfiguring the Designation Focused Practice in Hospital Medicine certification as the American Board of Internal Medicine recently discontinued their Hospitalist Board Exam, which served as the board exam for the DFPHM certification. Previously ABFM required 3000 cases in a 3-year period in order to sit for the DFPHM board exam. The fellowship is continuing with this case collection requirement in order to prepare for whatever requirement ABFM develops to replace the DFPHM board examination.

Each fellow will serve as adjunct faculty for the WAMC Family Medicine Residency and will become USUHS assistant professors. During their rotations at WAMC, they will teach Family Medicine, Obstetrics and Gynecology, Medicine, and Surgical Residents. They will also serve as preceptors for Physician Assistant students, USUHS, and Health Professions Scholarship Program students during their Family Medicine rotation. Each fellow will participate in Simulation instruction of the FM residents, as well as didactic lectures throughout their fellowship. During the fellow’s rotations at Cape Fear Valley Medical Center, they will teach Surgical, Family Medicine, Internal Medicine, Obstetrics and Gynecology, and Emergency Medicine Residents. They will also have attending responsibilities for USUHS, other Medical students as well as Nurse Practitioner, and Physician Assistant students

All of our faculty are Designation of Focused Practice in Hospital Medicine and Fellow American Academy of Family Physicians certified.

The Fellowship matches the highly desired hospitalist schedule by conducting a seven day on service model. Each fellow receives eight days off each month, similar to every other military officers and military physicians. The days off are not traditional, due to working two weekends per month, but you will have two four-day weekends per month to recover from your seven day on work schedule.