Riverside, Calif, October 13, 2015 – Riverside Community Hospital announced today it has received notice of accreditation from the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME ) to sponsor a residency training program with its first class of internal medicine residents in July 2016.
Dr. Robby Gulati, Program Director for Internal Medicine at Riverside Community Hospital, was notified of the accreditation by ACGME, the national body responsible for post-graduate physician training programs in the U.S. This program has been developed in affiliation with the UCR School of Medicine and marks an important milestone for Riverside Community Hospital’s Graduate Medical Education Program.
“I am proud of the program we have developed in partnership with UC Riverside School of Medicine and with the Riverside Medical Clinic,” said Dr. Gulati. “We have excellent clinicians as educators who are looking forward to training more Internal Medicine physicians to meet the needs of our Inland Empire communities.”
“RCH is pleased to offer Riverside’s newest residency program with the UC Riverside School of Medicine,” said Patrick Brilliant, President and CEO of Riverside Community Hospital. “Our Internal Medicine program, together with the next programs being developed, will attract the next generation of physicians into our medical community. Riverside Community Hospital is committed to training the next generation of physicians through its Graduate Medical Education programs.”
The Riverside Community Hospital/UC Riverside School of Medicine Internal Medicine Residency Program is listed with the National Resident Matching Program and will begin interviewing medical school seniors for positions in the Internal Medicine Residency Program.
Internal medicine is a medical specialty in which physicians specialize in the prevention, detection, and treatment of illness in adults. Following graduation from medical school, physicians interested in internal medicine train an additional three years in order to become fully independent practicing physicians and eligible for board certification. During training, residents provide patient care under the supervision of attending physicians who are faculty of the residency program.
Riverside Community Hospital will be the primary inpatient training facility for the new program, with additional training at Riverside Medical Clinic and other specialty sites. As the academic partner of the new program, the UCR School of Medicine will provide educational support and some teaching faculty.
“The approval of the RCH residency program helps reinforce the medical school’s mission to expand and diversify the physician workforce in Inland Southern California. This region has a severe shortage of physicians – particularly in primary care specialties like internal medicine,” said Neal Schiller, Ph.D., Interim Dean of the UCR School of Medicine. “By building new residency training programs in our area, over time we will begin to reverse that shortage. That is because one of the primary drivers of where physicians practice is where they complete residency training.”
The Internal Medicine program will have a total of 55 residents by 2018. Several additional residency programs are being planned.
About Riverside Community Hospital
Founded in 1901, Riverside Community Hospital (RCH) is a 373 licensed bed, full-service acute care hospital in the heart of the Inland Empire. With over 500 physicians on staff, representing over 200 specialties and over 1,700 employees, Riverside Community Hospital is an Inland Empire leader in providing advanced, comprehensive health care to the Inland region. RCH houses one of the largest Emergency Room and Trauma Centers in the Inland Empire at 50 beds with an average wait time of only 22 minutes. RCH is one of Riverside County's only STEMI (heart attack) receiving centers and is a fully accredited Chest Pain Center. Other Centers of Excellence include the Heart Care Institute, offering invasive and non-invasive cardiac procedures, the Transplant Program, and a Level II Neonatal Intensive Care Unit.
About the UCR School of Medicine
The UCR School of Medicine, one of more than 15 new medical schools established in the U.S. over the last decade, is the sixth medical school in the University of California system. Currently enrolling 50 new medical students each year, the school’s mission is to expand and diversify the region’s physician workforce and develop innovative research and healthcare delivery models that improve the health of people living in Inland Southern California. The medical school also offers a Ph.D. program in biomedical sciences, and operates five residency training programs in the medical specialties of family medicine, internal medicine, general surgery and psychiatry, and partners with Loma Linda University in a primary care pediatrics residency training program.