Carolinas Medical Center-Union's
Family Practice Residency Program
In 1997, the CMC-Union Residency Program was established and accredited by the ACGME. It is a 2-2-2 program with the first year based at Carolinas Medical Center (CMC) in Charlotte, North Carolina and the next two years based at CMC-Union - a so-called 1 + 2 program - in Monroe, North Carolina. CMC and URMC are approximately 30 miles apart. Except for two months, the first year curriculum of the CMC-Union residency is similar to that of the main program. However, the curriculum for the second and third years is different and more specifically focused on training residents who wish to eventually practice in a small town, suburban or rural environments. Their continuity experiences are in a private practice and at the public health department in Monroe.

This program was designed based on the "apprenticeship model" in which residents train one-on-one with preceptors in a private practice setting. Our program accepts two residents per year. This allows us to focus on each individual resident's educational needs. The patient population we serve is diverse, with patients ranging from farmers and poultry workers to banking executives and hospital employees. This "real world" setting ultimately prepares residents to care for patients in a variety of environments, including small town, suburban, rural and underserved areas.

Early Beginnings
The family practice residency program at Carolinas Medical Center (CMC) has a long history of being a strong, nationally recognized and competitive, academic, yet community-based program. Preceded by a program in general practice in the 1950's and 1960's, the current program was approved by the Residency Review Committee for Family Practice of the Accreditation Council of Graduate Medical Education (ACGME) in 1973, under the leadership of David S. Citron, M.D.

As the institution has grown, so has the residency program. Under the leadership of a forward-thinking hospital administration, a Department of Family Practice was organized after the residency was firmly established in the 1980's. From its inception, the program has been substantially affiliated with the Department of Family Medicine at the University of North Carolina School of Medicine in Chapel Hill. Over the years, CMC's main family practice residency program has grown to 6-6-6 and has moved four times to larger and more modern facilities. Under the leadership of J. Lewis Sigmon Jr., M.D., the Department expanded its pre-doctoral, research and fellowship functions. Its faculty expanded to include more family physicians, an occupational medicine physician, and other doctorate-level allied health educators (e.g. psychology and pharmacy).

With the expansion of Carolinas HealthCare System, of which CMC is the largest member, and its Carolinas Physician Network, the Department was given permission to expand its mission to training residents at both urban and rural sites in the region.