Featured in photo from left to right: Michael Novak, Dr. Greg Buller and Dr. Stanley J. Dudrick

New medical residency program looks to future

This summer, Saint Mary’s Hospital welcomed the first “class” of its new Yale-affiliated medical residency program, bringing some of the best medical school graduates from around the country, and around the world, to the Greater Waterbury community.

Saint Mary’s recruited first, second and third-year students for the new, three-year program and received more than 200 applications in all. “We were looking for people who were in the top of their class, had leadership skills, were flexible enough to participate in a new program and had a solid foundation of research,” said Caroline Kim, MD, MPH, assistant professor of pediatrics and internal medicine, Yale University School of Medicine, who serves as program director and works closely with Forugh F. Homayounrooz, MD, associate program director. “We really did choose the best of the best.”

In addition to working in the Intensive Care Unit, Emergency Department and inpatient units, the residents will complete rotations at Yale in neurology, geriatrics and other electives and train with a roster of full- and part-time faculty that includes hospital staff and community physicians. All members of the medical teaching faculty at Saint Mary’s are also Yale faculty members, several of whom have won multiple Yale teaching awards.

In fact, Saint Mary’s Hospital has been affiliated with Yale as a teaching hospital for nearly 40 years and previously served as one of three hospitals for the Yale Primary Care Residency Program. David L. Coleman, MD, professor of medicine and interim chair, Department of Medicine, Yale School of Medicine, and Asgar Rastegar, MD, professor of medicine and associate chair for academic affairs, Department of Medicine, Yale School of Medicine, were both instrumental in helping to establish the new program at Saint Mary’s.

“This is something to celebrate,” said Michael Novak, vice president of graduate medical education and professional services at Saint Mary’s. “Teaching hospitals are vibrant places. They tend to attract a higher caliber of physicians who are more interested in exploring trends and new research methods and have a greater understanding of new technologies and new treatments. Several of our former residents have returned as distinguished members of our medical staff and we hope to continue that trend with the new program. So it’s a building process.”

“The advantage for the patient is the same group of residents will be at Saint Mary’s for rotations rather than going to four different hospitals. The continuity of care and overall patient care will improve significantly,” said Gregory K. Buller, MD, a nephrologist, faculty member and chairman of the Department of Medicine.

That continuity also benefits physicians. “You’re dealing with people you know. You’ve helped train them. The residents know the community and the types of patients they’re going to be caring for. They’ve already had the best on-the-job training you’re going to get,” said Steve Holland, MD, who completed his residency training at Saint Mary’s and is now associate director of the Emergency Services Department and medical director of its Wound Healing Center.

Since the new residents will live in Greater Waterbury and predominantly train here, the hope is that they will establish practices here upon graduation like Carlos S. Almeida, MD, who completed his residency training at Saint Mary’s and joined Greater Waterbury Primary Care in September 2005.

“It’s a feeling of giving back to your community,” Almeida said of his decision to stay in the community where he grew up and trained as a physician. “There were a lot of other practices and offers in other areas of Connecticut and around the country. But I’d rather be here and practice here than anywhere else.”

“We’re training people to go out into the community and give the kind of care we give – or even better care, because we’re training them for the future,” said Stanley J. Dudrick, MD, chairman of the Department of Surgery and director, Program in Surgery, at Saint Mary’s.

Saint Mary’s remains one of three hospitals in the Yale Medicine-Pediatrics Residency Program, a clinical training program in Waterbury staffed by Yale residents and attending physicians. The hospital’s surgical residency program, a six-year training program that was established in 1951 and is one of the oldest in the state, is also closely linked to Yale.