The Swedish Cherry Hill Rural Training Program (RTP) is a 1+2 program, where residents have the unique opportunity to train in Seattle, WA with the core Swedish Cherry Hill FMR program for their first year, before relocating to Port Angeles, Washington, on the Olympic Peninsula for the following two years to train with a rural focus. The Swedish Cherry Hill RTP attracts residents from diverse backgrounds who are passionate about providing full-spectrum primary care to underserved rural communities and who are called to improve the health and well-being of vulnerable populations in rural areas.
The Swedish Cherry Hill Rural Training Program (RTP) welcomed its first class of two residents in 2017 and has now grown to three residents per year. Residents spend their first year practicing in an urban, community-based clinic with their Cherry Hill colleagues, spending most of their year on inpatient and obstetrics rotations at the Swedish First Hill campus, as well as inpatient pediatrics and pediatric emergency medicine at Seattle Children’s Hospital.
RTP residents relocate to Port Angeles, Washington, for their remaining two years where they train with full-spectrum family physicians who also practice high-risk obstetrics. Port Angeles is a small community of about 20,000 people located at the base of the Olympic Mountains on the shores of the Strait of Juan de Fuca, whose healthcare systems serve a rural catchment area for the entire county of about 77,000 people. Outpatient training takes place at North Olympic Healthcare Network (NOHN), a HRSA-funded, Federally Qualified Health Center, while inpatient and obstetrics care are provided at Olympic Medical Center (OMC), a 67-bed acute-care safety net hospital, with a level III trauma center, birth center and busy emergency room with approximately 30,000 ER visits annually.
Residents also rotate with community preceptors in various specialties and have opted to take elective rotations at a nearby tribal health center, the Clallam County Jail as well as away rotations at Indian Health Service sites and international sites through the Swedish-sponsored Malawi Global Health program. Family physicians have provided full-spectrum care in this community since the 1950s and continue to attract new graduates who want to practice in small rural communities.
NOHN also serves as a clinical clerkship site for the University of Washington School of Medicine Targeted Rural Underserved Track (TRUST) scholars and often hosts sub-interns from the Washington State University College of Medicine providing senior residents the opportunity to develop clinical teaching skills.
