FAQs

What are the strengths of your program?
Do your residents obtain board certification?
How has your program done in the match?
Is Greensboro a good place to live?
Which one of the world's 100 most influential people is a friend of the Moses Cone Family Medicine Residency Program?
What is the retention rate of your program?
What major changes do you anticipate?
How does your program plan to incorporate technology into education?
Is the Moses Cone Family Practice opposed or unopposed?
Where is the Family Practice Center located and what types of patients does it serve?
Where does resident training take place?
What about Obstetrical training at your program?

What are the strengths of your program?

We are proudest of the people who make up the program. Our longstanding tradition of excellence has allowed us to attract mature, intelligent, well-balanced residents. They, along with a stable faculty and high quality support staff, make a highly effective team. We all work together to reach our goals of excellence in patient care and resident education.

More concretely, our program is known for both our sports medicine and well balanced training. We offer fellowships in sports medicine for those residents who wish to develop added expertise. We also plan to strengthen our relationship with Hospice and the Palliative Care Consult service and expand our training in end-of-life and palliative care.

Our residency program offers many other unique learning opportunities. To learn more about them, go to Educational Programs on the sidebar, and Program Resources.

Do your residents obtain board certification?

Due to our success in recruiting high quality medical students, our residents and graduates have fared well on all quality indicators. Specifically, they score well above the national average on in-training exams, and have a 100% pass rate on the Family Practice Board Exam.

How has your program done in the match?

Our program has consistently filled over the past decade with predominantly US graduates. We are happy to consider foreign medical graduates but typically to be successful they need to be highly competitive applicants and have USMLE scores that average 80 or above.

Is Greensboro a good place to live?

Greensboro is a city of 213,000 people. It is nestled between the Appalachian Mountains and the Atlantic coast, in a region of gently rolling terrain called the Piedmont. With its long falls and springs and mild winters, outdoor activities are popular among residents. The city has several colleges and universities, including UNC-Greensboro, North Carolina A&T University, Greensboro College, Guilford College, and Bennett College. The cost of living is at the national average. The Guilford County School System is well regarded. Most children of the residents and faculty attend public schools. Because Greensboro is such an attractive city, we have been able to recruit residents from all parts of the country. Most of them choose to stay in North Carolina once they graduate because it is such a great place to live. (For more information, go to About Greensboro on the sidebar.)

Which one of the world's 100 most influential people is a friend of the Moses Cone Family Medicine Residency Program?

Joey Cheek, 2006 Gold and Silver medallist for the United States at the Turin Olympics in speed skating and 2002 Bronze medallist at the Salt Lake City Olympics. Selected for Eric Heiden Athlete of the Year by US Speedskating, Time Magazine's "100 People Who Shape Our World," and "Person of the Week" by ABC News, Joey donated his time and Olympic earnings to promote the work of Right To Play programs in Chad for Sudanese refugees, and the Save Darfur Coalition.  We're proud to know him.

Joey Cheek at the Family Practice Center with his mom, Chris Cheek

What is the retention rate of your program?

In over 20 years, only 12 residents have left our program before graduating. The key reasons have been the spouse has had a job transfer to another city or a family illness required the individual to return closer to home. Over the past decade, no individuals have left the program because of either academic difficulties or problems with the program itself.

What major changes do you anticipate?

Currently, the program has a very successful record. For this reason we do not anticipate making major changes in the curriculum or the approach to education. In the next few years, we will see all residency programs move towards goals, objectives, and experience-based learning. This may mean that rather than having a specific block of time for a given rotation, the resident will need to document the actual experience. In this fashion if someone has had insufficient experience in a given area they would perhaps devote additional elective time to learning that aspect of the curriculum.

One area of ongoing interest that we anticipate expanding in the future is the area of prevention. We would like to find opportunities to expand this training to incorporate practical experiences that allow residents to promote prevention in their own patients as well as in the community. This may include school, church or other agency-based initiatives. Alternative medicine practices will increasingly become a part of standard medical practice as well.

Quite clearly, the nature of medical education is constantly changing. We anticipate responding to the needs and requests of residents by adjusting our curriculum to better accomplish their educational goals.

How does your program plan to incorporate technology into education?

One of our training resources pages lists some of the initiatives that we have begun in order to make technology an everyday part of both education and patient care. We anticipate continuing to use personal digital assistants; having cabled internet connections on each patient care hallway; having web-based patient care information; and using an online intranet that provides patient care information, handouts, lecture information, and a goals and objectives based curriculum.  (Go to Educational Programs on sidebar, Program Resources, then Technological Tools Resources for more information.)

Is the Moses Cone Family Practice opposed or unopposed?

With eight residents per year, the Family Practice Residency Program is the largest residency in our health system. We also have an Internal Medicine residency program that supports six residents per year. Pediatric residents from Chapel Hill regularly do a rotation at our hospital.

As an aside, the word "opposed" does not capture the spirit of our relationship with the other residents at our hospital. We cooperate and support one another. We feel that our program benefits from the other residents and faculty that serve our hospital. (To learn more about these programs, go to AHEC Home on the sidebar, then Residency Training.)

Where is the Family Practice Center located and what types of patients does it serve?

Our Family Practice Center (FPC) is a separate building located on the campus of our main teaching hospital. We see patients of all income levels. Our payor mix is as follows: 27% Medicaid, 15% Medicare, 15% Private Insurance, 21% Managed Care, 19% Self Pay and 3% Other.

Thirty-two percent of our visits are by patients 18 years of age or younger, 24% 19 to 35, 19% 36 to 50, 11% 51 to 64 and 13% are 65 or older. (To learn more about the FPC, select About FPC on the sidebar.)

Where does resident training take place?

Most of our in-hospital rotations take place at our main facility, the 550 bed Moses Cone Hospital. Our OB and normal newborn nursery rotations take place at the Women's Hospital; a facility dedicated to women's health care located approximately three miles from Moses Cone Hospital. The city's third hospital, Wesley Long, is also part of the Moses Cone Health System and residents will occasionally see patients in that facility.

We also use private practitioners' offices and other outpatient facilities in our training. Approximately 80% of the training of our 1st year residents is in hospital based rotations. By the time a resident reaches the third year, 85% of the training is in ambulatory based experiences.

What about Obstetrical training at your program?

Our program has a wealth of clinical opportunities to learn low risk obstetrics. The required experience consists of two inpatient months during the intern year and the assignment of prenatal and intrapartum care of 12 continuity patients over the three years of residency. For those interested in training more thoroughly in obstetrics and maternity care, we offer the Obstetrics Area of Concentration. As well, the Advanced Life Support in Obstetrics (ALSO) course is provided for all first year residents.

Experience has taught us that family physicians often have opportunities to practice obstetrics in rural and underserved areas, but rarely have those opportunities in urban areas. Because of these realities, we encourage residents to carefully considered their preferred practice environment as they plan the depth of their obstetrical training during residency.