Fall 2024 highlights

Visit the Research News page and the Digital Awards page for other timely updates.

Cross-mission highlights:

Family medicine endowment established in honor of OHSU alum, family medicine doctor: Claire Montaigne, M.D., R '20, was a dedicated family medicine practitioner at OHSU and an inspiring assistant professor known for her compassion and commitment to her patients and students. Tragically, she passed away on September 21, 2022, at the age of 33. Claire had been with the department since her residency in 2016 and touched countless lives in her six years here as a learner, healer, and friend. In her memory, family and friends have established the Claire Hays Montaigne Endowment, which will honor her legacy by supporting future family medicine residents who exemplify her values of kindness, leadership, and dedication to improving healthcare access.

The Changemakers: Erik Brodt, M.D.: Supporting the Native health leaders of tomorrow: "It’s normal to be an American Indian walking through the halls of OHSU now, whereas seven years ago, it wasn’t; you stood out. But now it’s so normal because there’s over 100 of us walking around. That is stunning compared to every other academic health center in the country. "

Family Medicine's Erik Brodt, M.D., associate dean for Native American Health and director of Northwest Native American Center of Excellence - NNACoE, was highlighted the OHSU Foundation Changemaker series.

Education highlights: 

Central Oregon’s first graduate medical education program launches: OHSU and St. Charles Health System jointly established Three Sisters RTP to help grow Central Oregon’s health care workforce and meet the unique health needs of rural Oregonians.

“Once at St. Charles, the residents will immediately help fill a need in the region, providing care for an estimated 900 patients a year.”

OHSU Family Medicine Interest Group earns American Academy of Family Physicians Program of Excellence Award: The American Academy of Family Physicians has selected Oregon Health & Science University Family Medicine Interest Group as a 2024 Program of Excellence Award winner. OHSU is among 18 winners total, and was selected for the “excellence in impact” category. FMIGs are chosen for their work to promote the specialty of family medicine at their medical schools and in their communities.

OAFP From the Hill: Rebirth of the Public Health & General Preventive Medicine Residency at OHSU: Learn more about the important work Dr. Brian Garvey, M.D., M.P.H., is doing through the new Public Health & General Preventive Medicine (PH/GPM) Residency at OHSU and how it addresses the need for a public health workforce!

Clinical highlights:

OHSU expands access to life-saving naloxone for young people: Family Medicine's own, Nancy Zink, M.D. as Benson High School medical director highlighted in OHSU News article on OHSU's expansion of access to life-saving naloxone for young people.

Research highlights:

Research Profile: Brigit Hatch, M.D., M.P.H: Dr. Hatch is a physician-researcher in OHSU Family Medicine who focuses on strategies to improve primary care. This broad topic has led her to focus on a variety of approaches including health policies, health systems organization, clinical care models, and specific individual- and clinic-level interventions. Most of her work focuses on improving preventive care for underserved patient populations (those served by rural health clinics and community health centers), and especially among women and children. Dr. Hatch was also recently appointed to the Charles and Velma Sharp Endowed Professorship – a position focused on non-traditional cancer prevention in primary care.

Jennifer DeVoe appointed as vice chair of Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute Board: Jennifer DeVoe, M.D., D.Phil., professor and chair of family medicine in the OHSU School of Medicine, was appointed to a second term as vice chairperson of the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute, or PCORI, Board of Governors, by the Comptroller General of the United States. She will serve another six-year term, until Sept. 2030.

PCORI was established by the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. It is an independent, nonprofit research funding organization, and is the leading funder of patient-centered comparative clinical effectiveness research in the U.S.

Bridging gaps in cervical cancer care: The OHSU Foundation recently did a deep dive into Family Medicine researcher Cirila Estela Vasquez Guzman, Ph.D.'s work investigating inequities in health among Native American and Latinx communities. 

Spring 2024 highlights

View our Spring 2024 Newsletter for timely updates across the department. 

Awards and honors: 

• Brigit Hatch, M.D., M.P.H. a physician dually certified in family medicine and preventive medicine, was named the Charles R. and Velma E. Sharp Professor in the OHSU School of Medicine. Learn more.
• OAFP named Wendy Warren, M.D., Oregon Family Physician of the Year! Read more.
• Melinda Davis, Ph.D., M.C.R. was honored with the North American Primary Care Group (NAPCRG) President’s Award for her work on the International Conference on Practice Facilitation (ICPF).
• The HCC Team has chosen the Family Medicine Clinic at Gabriel Park as the recipient of the annual OHSU Health HCC Impact Award for 2023
• Nathalie Huguet, Ph.D., received a Scholarly Projects Excellence in Mentoring Award during the 2024 Scholarly Project reception. 
• Moira Ray, M.D., M.P.H., Katie Putnam, M.D., M.P.H., and Emily Jacobson, M.P.A.S, P.A.-C, were honored by OHSU School of Medicine for their outstanding contributions in teaching, research and clinical care.
• Check out this list of faculty and staff who recently received honors from the OHSU School of Medicine! 

Family Medicine has a new digital awards webpage, check it out of you're interested in learning more about our awards. 

Education highlights: 

OHSU Family Medicine partners with CareOregon to launch OHSU Preventive Medicine Residency Read more on OHSU News.

Congratulations to Brian Garvey, M.D., M.P.H., for your efforts in getting the program up and running, an for being the inaugural program director! Visit their website to learn more.

Another successful Student Mentor Celebration!

Every year the Family Medicine Student Education Team hosts the Student Mentor Celebration, a dinner to show appreciation and honor those who precept and provide mentoring to medical students throughout the year. This year's event was another success! 

• Anna, Bloom, M.D. was the recipient of the Robert B. Taylor Award
• Alyssa Andretta, M.D., was the recipient of the Outstanding Family Core Clinical Award 
• Kip Beckwith, P.A. Student, received the William O. Stahl, M.D. Award for Oregon Rural Health Practitioners
• Melissa Lemieux, Family Medicine Electives Coordinator, received the Peggy O’Neill Excellence in Student Education Award
• Sarah Skog, M.D. (pictured below with Sean Robinson, M.D.), received the Fran Biagioli, M.D. Outstanding Didactic Teaching Award 
• Amy Tubay, M.D., was the recipient of the Scott A. Fields, M.D., M.H.A. Outstanding Medical Student Teaching and Mentoring Award

Congratulations to the award recipients and a special thank you to this past year's mentors! You can find their names below. 

• Antonio Germann, M.D., M.P.H.
• Brian Park, M.D., M.P.H.
• Eriko Onishi, M.D.
• Jen DeVoe, M.D., D.Phil.
• Joe Skariah, D.O., M.P.H
• Matthew Chan, M.D.
• Rick Moberly, M.D.
• Robin Vest, M.D.
• Sarah Skog, M.D.
• Sean Robinson, M.D.
• Sumathi Devarajan, M.D.
• Tovi Anderson, M.D. 

Clinical highlights:

New clinic in East Portland opens doors to patients this Spring

In March, members of family medicine, Adventist, OHSU leadership, Multnomah county representatives, and others got together to celebrate the opening of the new OHSU Family Medicine East Portland Community Health Center. Fondly called "East Portland," this new facility will provide comprehensive care for East Portland residents regardless of insurance status or ability to pay.

Doors officially opened March 26. As of early May, the clinic has had 197 scheduled appointments; 25% of them have been for new patients. The team is pleased to be able to serve a new community, and can tell by the high new patient ratio there is a definite need for services that they are well suited to help address. The clinic currently consists of 3 providers, an interim manager, supervisor, pharmacist, pharmacy technician, four medical assistants, 4 physician assistants and a care coordinator. The ramp-up has been keep at a manageable pace and the team expects to open clinician schedules for more appointments in the summer. Congratulations to the team on these early milestones and a huge thank you to the staff and leaders from Richmond clinic who were an invaluable support in opening this clinic: Danielle Anderson; Ed Johnson; Erin Kirk; Jennifer Schlobohm, M.S.W., L.C.S.W., LICSW; Kandace Kyles; Kristine Etheridge, PharmD; Nancy Zink, M.D.; Nicole McNiff, M.S.N., R.N.; Shelton Brooks, and Stein Berger! Learn more on their website. 

Behind the scenes with Richmond's first Resource Specialist

The Department of Family Medicine at any given point has over 600 employees. We’re taking a moment to zoom in on one of our colleagues whose work doesn’t always get highlighted. Please meet Luana Nery, the OHSU Family Medicine Richmond Clinic’s first Resource Specialist. Upon starting a video call with Luana, the first thing you may notice is the beautiful art piece behind her. Luana shared that this piece of art is from an artist in Hawaii, where Luana was born and raised. In fact, her name is also Hawaiian. Read more.

Research highlights:

Update from Second Annual Latino Primary Care Summit Read more.

Spotlight on Latina's stories from across the Pacific Northwest Read more.

Other Family Medicine Research stories in the news:

• The Role of State Health Agencies in Disaggregating Latino Patients’ Data
• OHSU study finds big jump in addiction treatment at community health clinics
• OHSU project seeks to put people at the center of health care
• Family medicine researchers measured primary care spending by state
• Check out our Research News webpage for more updates!
• Featured: Research Profile: Erik Brodt, M.D.

Winter 2023 highlights

Transforming health care

The Northwest Native American Center of Excellence worked with filmmaker Robert A. Cuadra to share its vision for supporting more American Indians and Alaska Natives in their efforts to become health professionals, incorporating their wisdom and insights to help provide high-quality, compassionate and culturally appropriate health care for every American.

“Not long ago, American Indians and Alaska Natives were the healthiest people on the continent,” says Erik Brodt, M.D., in the new video. “Yet now we live sicker and die younger than any other group of people in America… We believe in a new generation of Native health leaders. Native youth hold the potential and the solutions to improve health care for all people.”

Watch the video.

DFM in the news

• Experts warn against climate change's impacts on youth health. Leah Werner, M.D., says “We’re looking at a time where the field of medicine has a professional responsibility to address this and keep our communities healthy." 
• To broaden long COVID care, OHSU prepares primary care providers. Anthony Cheng, M.D., Eric Herman, M.D., and Elizabeth Shih, M.D., created an easy-to-use guide and interactive video series to help clinicians statewide. 
• OHSU researchers confirm association between parent, child vaccination status. DFM researchers found that children with a parent who received a flu vaccine were nearly twice as likely to be fully vaccinated by age 2, compared with children whose parent who did not receive a flu vaccine.

Residency report

Good news from three of our four Family Medicine residency programs:

• The Hillsboro Residency Program, which launched in 2021, is now fully accredited by the ACGME.
• The Cascades East Residency Program was approved for an expansion to add one resident per year, for a total of 9.
• And our Three Sisters Rural Track Program received initial accreditation. In partnership with St. Charles, Mosaic, and IHS Warm Springs, this new Family Medicine residency program is on track to welcome its first class in 2024! Interns will spend their first year in Portland followed by two years in Central Oregon.

Awards

Congratulations to our colleagues who received awards and honors this past quarter:

• AANP Excellence Award (Oregon): Ellen Iwasaki, FNP
• OHSU Clinical Excellence Award: Jessica Flynn, M.D.
• OHSU Emerging Leader Award: Rebecca Cantone, M.D.
• OHSU Outstanding Research Award Finalists: Nathalie Huguet, Ph.D., and Steffani Bailey, Ph.D.
• STFM Excellence in Education Award Nominee: Pat Eiff, M.D.
• Portland Monthly 2023 Top Providers: Rebecca Cantone, M.D.; Jen DeVoe, M.D., D.Phil; Jessica Flynn, M.D.; Kristin Gilbert M.D.; Christina Milano, M.D.; Melissa Novak, D.O.; Brian Park, M.D., M.P.H.; Ryan Petering, M.D.; Benjamin Schneider, M.D.; Elizabeth Shih, M.D.; Johanna Warren, M.D.