JABSOM's Department of Family Medicine and Community Health (DFMCH) and the UH Family Medicine Residency Program (FMRP) celebrated its 30th anniversary on Saturday.
Since its founding, the JABSOM FMRP has trained more than 170 residents, and more than 80 percent continue to serve Hawaiʻi and the broader Pacific. Neal Palafox, MD, MPH, was one of the FMRP's original faculty and was the Department's chair for many years.
"From the delivery (cradle) to the grave, Family Medicine covers a lifecycle," Palafox said. "It's a view of not only individual health but population health, so those are the dimensions we worked from when building this program. This is what we wanted to do for the state of Hawaiʻi."
Palafox served as the evening's keynote speaker. He chronicled the program's humble beginnings at Wahiawā General Hospital in 1994 through the transition to Pali Momi in 2017 and the new Pali Momi Outpatient Center in 2020. He noted that the program would not have survived if it hadn't been for the help of the various health systems in the state, the legislature, and HMSA.
"From a partnership standpoint, we had the residents doing rotations at Queen’s, at Hawaiʻi Pacific Health, Tripler Army Medical Center, Kaiser, and St. Francis. There is no hospital that didn't partner to make this work in some way."
The goal of serving all of Hawaiʻi and the Pacific aligns with JABSOM's mission of training and educating a community of physicians, biomedical scientists and allied health workers who are committed to our vision of ALOHA: Attain Lasting Optimal Health for All.
"Over the last three decades, our Family Medicine Residency Program has made a tremendous impact on the state," said JABSOM Dean Sam Shomaker. "FMRP provides the opportunity for our homegrown physicians to stay in Hawaiʻi to practice and provide care for their communities."
Over the last 30 years, JABSOM’s Family Medicine Residency Program has gone on to produce some of the most stellar physicians in Hawaiʻi.
Jill Omori, MD directs JABSOM’s Office of Medical Education, started the Hawaii HOME project and has won numerous awards for her community service.
Recently, Chip Hixon, MD, was named the Pali Momi Medical Center’s Physician of the Year.
“Our mission is to deploy frontline Primary Care physicians not just here on Oʻahu, but throughout the state,” Hixon said. “Teaching others is part of the Hippocratic Oath. We’ve been able to sustain the program because of the generous support we’ve received from the physician community who have welcomed our residents over the years and shared their clinical knowledge with our trainees.”
JABSOM’s Associate Dean for Academic Affairs, Lee Buenconsejo-Lum, MD, FAAFP, is an FMRP graduate and was recently named Family Physician of the Year by the Hawaiʻi Academy of Family Physicians.
“Family Medicine is the specialty of continuity of care and a holistic approach to patient care,” she said. “This is the foundation of Family Medicine and at a time where our state needs more physicians, I am proud to have chosen this speciality and I’m proud to have trained here at home, alongside many others who are dedicated to serving Hawaiʻi.”
As FMRP looks ahead to the next 30 years, they hope to continue to fulfill that mission of serving all of Hawaiʻi. The program is pending accreditation for establishing a new residency program on Kauaʻi.
