This Partnership with the University of Maryland Medical System is the First of Its Kind for Our Hospital

Benjamin Franklin was fond of saying, “Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn.” While one of this nation’s most celebrated Founding Fathers may not have been the motivating force behind University of Maryland Charles Regional Medical Center’s new residency program, its goals are reflected in his wise prescription.

While Charles Regional has a long history of providing real-world training to volunteering medical students from around the region, it never had a formal program in place. That’s changed under the watchful eye of Joseph Moser, MD, the hospital’s chief medical officer and the program’s director.

“We have offered an elective preceptorship to the University of Maryland School of Medicine Family Practice residency program, which allows its residents to choose to work for a month with an experienced physician practicing in primary care or a specialty of particular interest to them. We have also begun a preceptorship program with the UM School of Nursing for students in their Nurse Practitioner program,” Dr. Moser said. “In these new programs, Charles Regional has made a commitment to University of Maryland training programs as well as to the trainees to formally participate in their graduate medical education.”

This first program put a student in the Emergency Department and a student at each of three hospital affiliated practices: Primary Care, Women’s Health and the new Behavioral Health practice.

Partnering with the University of Maryland Medical System on this program was a natural fit for Charles Regional, thanks to our existing relationship as a member organization and the system’s teaching mission, which is rooted in providing quality health care in Maryland. And since most health care is community-based, this residency program helps ensure that trainees gain some experience in the state’s suburban and rural regions, in addition to the urban settings in which they typically train. These are areas that need providers, and the program gives the trainees exposure to communities they might not otherwise see and opens options for their future practice decisions.

“Being in a small community, the care given to patients is naturally more personal. There is a good patient/physician relationship that both parties really appreciate. This program introduces this kind of care to students who may not otherwise experience it in more urban settings,” said David Caiseda, MD, an OB-GYN at our Women’s Health practice and one of the program’s participating physicians.

Although the program is only a couple of months old, it’s already paying dividends to its participants. “I was so impressed by how welcoming everyone was to me at UM Charles Regional Medical Center. I worked with multiple providers, and they all took an interest in helping me learn,” said Shelley Martin, family nurse practitioner student at the University of Maryland, Baltimore. “I feel that the providers I worked with at UM Charles Regional Medical Center spend extra time teaching and guiding my learning experiences.”

With doctors and students alike already impressed with the residency program, it looks like it will be a part of Charles Regional for the long haul.

“As physicians and other health care professionals, we had the benefit of training with experienced providers in our fields,” Dr. Moser said. “Most of us feel an obligation to ‘pay it forward’ and help people currently in training to learn from our experience.”