Saint Agnes to begin Family Medicine Physician Residency program following new accreditation

FRESNO, Calif. (KFSN) -- Saint Agnes has just been accredited and can now begin its first Family Medicine Physician Residency program.

"Family medicine will start. We will have a three-year program. We're going to have eight residents in each year, so a total of 24 residents and we are very excited about that," said Dr. Walter Eugene Egerton, the Chief Medical Officer at Saint Agnes.

Dr. Egerton says this is a significant honor for the 89-year-old hospital.

In the last year, the hospital launched its first Internal Medicine physician residency program.

"I grew up here since I was 11 years old, so it's good to be back home," said Faiz Kusumo, an internal medicine resident.

Kusumo graduated from USC medical school and is a Clovis West graduate. He is one of the residents in the historic first class of Internal Medicine and is thankful for the one on one lessons he is learning.

"There is so much you learn as a resident: how to be efficient. Communicating with residents is the biggest thing, with patients and their families because you do that a lot more as a resident than in medical school," Kusumo said.

After this year, Kusumo will head off to a radiology residency on the east coast and hopefully come back to California.

"Sadly, there's not enough primary care here in the Valley so the hope is that by training family medicine residents along with our internal medicine residents, we will have a substrate of primary care physician who upon finishing the residency might choose to stay in the Central Valley," Dr. Egerton said.

Already Saint Agnes has seen more interest in the Valley. Last year 450 people applied for 16 spots. This year they've had Almost 1100 applicants so far, creating a competitive program that could benefit the Valley.

The Family Medicine Residency will welcome its first class in July of 2019.

Saint Agnes is already making plans to expand. They hope to offer Emergency Medicine and Transitional Year residency programs in the future.