New Family Medicine Residency Coming to Milwaukee Health Services, Inc.
Milwaukee Health Services, Inc. (MHSI), the Medical College of Wisconsin (MCW), Froedtert Health, and Children’s Wisconsin are partnering in the development and operation of a new family medicine residency, located at MHSI’s Isaac Coggs Heritage Health Center on Milwaukee’s northwest side – the North Side Milwaukee Health Centers Family Medicine Residency.
The North Side Milwaukee Health Centers Family Medicine Residency aims to build a sustainable pathway for Milwaukee and Wisconsin’s primary care physician workforce, particularly as workforce shortages continue to be a significant challenge.
“The residency will offer residents a unique experience that elevates social determinants of health and emphasizes community-based primary care. A community-based residency also increases the percentage of physicians who choose to practice in primary care settings,” said Tito Izard, MD, president and CEO of MHSI. “We are taking an innovative, asset-based approach to building a physician workforce representative of the populations served.”
The North Side Milwaukee Health Centers Family Medicine Residency has matched with and will welcome 14 new residents in July 2023. Once fully operational, the program will train and graduate 14 residents annually, with 42 resident physicians enrolled concurrently. While the residency will be housed at MHSI’s Isaac Coggs Heritage Health Center, it also leverages the expertise of the family medicine faculty of the MCW and partners with Froedtert Hospital and Children’s Wisconsin for required hospital rotations. The goal is to expand the North Side Milwaukee Health Centers Family Medicine Residency to the other Federally Qualified Health Centers on Milwaukee’s north side, namely Outreach Community Health Centers and Progressive Community Health Centers, in the future.
“MCW is pleased to be a partnering institution and is honored to work with the partnering institutions – MHSI, the Milwaukee Health Care Partnership (MHCP), Froedtert Health, and Children’s Wisconsin. We are grateful for the leadership of Drs. Izard and Garrison to promote physicians as health advocates within their respective communities – and the medical community at large,” said Joseph E. Kerschner, MD, provost and executive vice president at MCW, and the Julia A. Uihlein, MA, Dean of the School of Medicine. “It is an amazing accomplishment. I believe this kind of partnering initiative will have an enormous impact on our communities into the future and, in particular, into our communities of greatest need for healthcare access and equity.”
The residency is spearheaded by two Milwaukee north side-native family medicine physician leaders – Tito Izard, MD, president and CEO of MHSI, and Camille Garrison, MD, Residency Program Director and Vice Chair of Graduate Medical Education, Department of Family & Community Medicine at MCW.
Additional start-up funding was provided by Froedtert Health and the MHCP Health Systems Shared Community Investment Fund. The Wisconsin Primary Health Care Association (WPHCA) and the MHCP were instrumental in the planning and execution of the North Side Milwaukee Health Centers Residency project, bringing to fruition a decade-long shared goal of establishing a program of it’s type in Milwaukee.