Our Vision
We intend to be the best rural family medicine program there is. To do so we focus on improving health, preparing leaders, and revolutionizing healthcare.
Our Mission
We educate family physicians to deliver innovative, comprehensive healthcare and serve our communities as leaders in rural family medicine.
The How
We are not just visionaries, we are family physicians and so we like actionable goals.
"Improving health." We specifically did not choose the term "health-care" but the broader concept of improving health. Understanding that "health" encompasses, but is not limited to, what we do inside the clinic walls, our residency has begun educating our residents on the health impacts of social justice, culinary medicine, public health, population medicine and community engagement. We first assure that our residents are excellent, broad-spectrum practitioners of comprehensive health-care, and then we push them to recognize and learn to address the things beyond central lines and beta blockers that affect the health of their patients.
"Preparing leaders." We understand that physicians often have a role of influence in their communities, and we consider it a weighty responsibility. In order to prepare our residents for roles in leadership we require that they serve in a leadership position as a resident representative to at least one hospital, residency, or community committee. We also heavily encourage resident innovation and greatly support their efforts: our Point of Care Ultrasound curriculum, our culinary medicine curriculum, and our social media presence were all resident-led projects. Finally, if interested in community leadership we make time for it - we have some residents serving on local health committees or quality improvement projects and we make sure that whenever possible they have the time to attend.
"Revolutionizing Healthcare." We take both a short term and long term approach to this goal. First, we train our residents in the full breadth of procedures available to family medicine physicians. In doing so we create a workforce that is capable of pushing the envelope of the scope of family medicine - not only can we do everything from hospital to ER, OB to clinic, but we can also contribute knowledgeably to population medicine and the health of our community. Secondly, by training leaders we are hoping to push family medicine and primary care towards the ideal of the truly comprehensive physician - one who can deliver excellent health-care as well as transform their community to improve health equity.
The History
Cascades East was the second family medicine residency to be developed in Oregon and accepted its first residents in July 1994. Oregon Health & Science University administers and sponsors the program. It is a collaboration of OHSU and Sky Lakes Medical Center in Klamath Falls. The Oregon Area Health Education Center program (AHEC) was involved in starting the program.
The program has nine residents per year for a total of 27 residents. Both full-time family medicine faculty and community physicians from many specialties are committed to teaching in the program. While all three years of training occur in Klamath Falls, 3-4 months out of the total three year residency are spent in other Oregon communities. This includes 3 weeks in Medford for NICU; 4 weeks in Portland for inpatient pediatrics; 4 weeks of ICU in either Bend or Klamath Falls; and 5 weeks in one of our frontier communities (John Day, Enterprise, and Lakeview).
Our program trains residents to become family medicine physicians who provide comprehensive care to their patients. We have a strong emphasis on maternal-child health, procedural medicine, wilderness medicine and transformed primary care. Our busy inpatient medicine service offers ample experience in both hospital medicine and intensive care. Residents may choose between tracks that emphasize maternity care, hospital medicine, or ambulatory care. Our family medicine center is a Five-Star Patient-Centered Medical Home. We seek to attract and train residents who will be lifelong learners and teachers in medicine and improve the health of their communities.
The Program exceeded my expectations and prepared me very well for life and work outside of residency. I am so grateful for my time at Cascades East.
Betsy O'Halloran, MD '07