Resident Life

Where family comes first

A key part of our mission is training compassionate, well rounded physicians to better serve their patients by understanding the social and community context that affects their patients’ health outcomes and needs. Our program values working in the community in both short-term and long-term projects with a focus on fostering longitudinal relationships. Here is a sampling of some of these important programs:

• Healthy Grosse Pointe / Harper Woods is a community organization sponsored by Beaumont, Grosse Pointe focusing on the social, emotional, physical, and spiritual health of all residents from ages 0-100. Our faculty regularly attend their monthly meetings and work with their director to provide speakers and support of programs in the community.
• Residents and faculty participate in a number of community clinics, seeing patients regularly in settings outside of the Family Medicine Center to increase access to care and provide experience with different patient populations and models of care.
• Embedded into our base clinic at the Family Medicine Center are a number of other "Specialty Clinics" which cater to specific populations, including SEASONS Clinic for substance use disorder and gender affirming care, Transitions of Care Clinic which ensures continuity of care between the inpatient and outpatient settings, Psychiatry Clinic, Procedure Clinic, Women’s OB Clinic and Female Procedure Clinic. 
• Partner with organizations in the community that support Urban Farming like Earthworks and Detroit Abloom
• Volunteer at sporting events with the local high schools including football and hockey games
• Residents have visited Detroit Empowerment Plants and River Rouge environmental tours to learn more about the communities they serve through their community medicine rotation

Additionally, our program recognizes that many of our patients seek out alternatives to traditional medicine and as such we offer our residents the opportunity to participate in an integrative medicine curriculum.

Wellness Activities

Our community-focused residency program has developed a unique longitudinal curriculum that builds upon the existing literature of eight dimensions of physician wellness with a fusion of integrative medicine-based components. Throughout the three-year residency, learners will be experientially introduced to concepts such as mind-body techniques, humanities in medicine, nutritional well-being, and exercise science. The main outcome for this program is for residents to build and maintain their individual self-care plans which will be monitored and revised monthly to increase adherence and identify challenges. Highlights have included:

• visits from the therapy dogs at the hospital
• regular wellness sessions including yoga
• empowerment and advocacy sessions
• resident lounge equipped with entertainment center and fitness equipment

During the COVID pandemic, our residency hosted biweekly check-ins with our clinical psychologist and various online social gatherings to check in with one another. Additionally, the Grosse Pointe community came together and supplied a food pantry for our resident physicians.

Social events and fun activities are planned throughout the year that highlight the mentorship and camaraderie amongst our faculty and resident physicians.

Residency Retreat

Each year, an off-campus workshop for our residents is organized to provide further skill development in the areas of communication, teaching, leadership, team-building, wellness and self-development. This year’s retreat ended with a fun cooking competition at Mirepoix Cooking School.