News

Palmdale Regional Medical Center’s now established Family Medicine Residency Program that began July 1, 2023, has welcomed the next group of eight Family Medicine residents to the program. The hospital continues to partner with community organizations and agencies to ensure the provision of a wide spectrum of services and curricula that are designed to provide the residents with diverse learning experiences to hone their knowledge, skills and attitude. This will prepare them for independent practice of medicine.

Led by Program Director, Romeo C. Castillo, MD, the hospital will continue to train residents who value professionalism, excellence, compassion, dedication and hard work, and are receptive to the concept of whole-person care.

"Our experience for the first year of our program certainly had challenges, nevertheless, we are proud of our successes. The training the residents received definitely provided a strong foundation of autonomous clinical practice,” said Dr. Castillo. “Now we are adding to the family with eight new family medicine residents, and we will continue to add more innovative learning opportunities to our training program. I am certain that they will find high value in their education here at Palmdale Regional Medical Center. Their dedication and hard work will help to bolster this very important program for the community.”

“The Family Medicine Residency Program that started as a vision and became a reality over the last year has been a huge success,” said Nana Deeb, Chief Executive Officer. “We are now adding to the hospital family with these new family medicine residents to continue the expansion of the program. We will include Internal Medicine and General Surgery residency programs within the next couple of years. These programs can only add benefit to the community and increase the healthcare footprint in the Antelope Valley. We are very proud of this program.”

The mission of Palmdale Regional’s Family Medicine residency program is to develop family medicine physicians as primary care specialists who will provide high-quality, compassionate, holistic and family-centered care to a diverse patient population with various needs and backgrounds.

The goal of the Palmdale Regional Medical Center Family Medicine Residency Program is to offer post-graduate residency training in Family Medicine for three years in length, complying with the guidelines and requirement of the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME). Residents will be provided with educational and learning experiences within the framework of the six core competencies to meet all the requirements for specialty board certification and with the ultimate goal of safe independent practice of Family Medicine as a specialty.

Our program seeks to achieve these educational goals:

1. To develop family medicine physicians who possess the necessary knowledge, skills and attitudes to provide holistic, comprehensive, culturally sensitive patient and family-centered care to diverse communities within the Antelope Valley and nearby communities.
2. To train future primary care physicians who are prepared to practice in any setting while providing excellent evidence-based care to various types of populations they will serve by providing a diverse clinical learning experience in a variety of clinical settings.
3. To provide a learning experience that includes a strong foundation in population health management and an understanding of social determinants of health with the goal of improving clinical outcomes in cost-effective care.
4. To provide training where the concept of adaptive learning and flexibility for individual learning is given high consideration by supporting residents’ areas of interest.
5. To provide training that promotes and emphasizes personal growth, the culture of lifelong learning and well-being that will lead to a long fulfilling career in primary care by equipping residents with the tools to enhance their educational experience and skills to maintain and sustain wellness and effective work-life balance.
6. To provide a learning experience that fosters teamwork and strong inter-professional collaboration by providing a learning environment that promotes respect and collegiality.
7. To provide training that incorporates a culture of inquiry, the environment of scholarship, and performance improvement by strengthening faculty role modeling and providing innovative pedagogical methods.