Medical Residency Program
The establishment of a graduate medical education (GME) program, thereby designating Sarasota Memorial Hospital as a teaching hospital, is meant to secure healthcare for the community for generations to come. It is a gift of immeasurable importance. SMH joined forces with Florida State University College of Medicine to create Sarasota County’s very first GME program. Sarasota Memorial Hospital’s first class of 13 resident physicians began their training July 2017, kicking off a GME program developed to offset a shortage of physicians and increase access to medical care in the community. Eventually, the program will grow to host 39 resident physicians.
Working side by side and under the supervision of SMH attending physicians, the new residents are now caring for ill or injured patients in the hospital, as well as providing primary and preventive care to patients in SMH’s new internal medicine practice at Newtown, named after one of its donors: The Jean & Alfred Goldstein Health Center at Sarasota Memorial Internal Medicine Practice at Newtown. An important part of the resident physicians’ outpatient training, the Newtown practice operates like a traditional group physician practice, except that each patient has two doctors managing his or her care—the resident physician and supervising attending physician.
Together, the residents and attending physicians provide a full range of primary and preventive care to residents of this underserved community.