GREENFIELD — Baystate Franklin Medical Center is creating a family medicine center that will offer a residency program by mid-2022 to doctors who want to train in family medicine, and it has received grants totaling $850,000 to help do so.
Dr. Robert Baldor, founding chair and professor for the University of Massachusetts Medical School-Baystate Department of Family Medicine, was hired to create the program in response to the growing specialization of medicine.
“Family medicine is built around a social unit — the family — as opposed to either a specific patient like a man, woman or child, an organ system like cardiology or the nature of intervention like surgery,” Baldor said. “Consequently, family physicians are trained to deal with the entire spectrum of clinical issues that might be encountered by the members of a family. Family medicine provides the opportunity to care for the patient and their families in a holistic fashion.”
He said four residencies a year will be offered to start, so over the first three years it will grow to 12 participants enrolled in the program. Young physicians — either medical doctors or doctors of osteopathic medicine — will be admitted into the program. Those people will have completed four years of medical school and be ready to do a residency, which is required to be licensed.
“We’ll develop a curriculum based around the care of family, built on broad training,” Baldor said. “Once a doctor finishes the program, they will care for an entire family, from young children to grandparents, doing everything from acute care to chronic care to wellness and preventive medicine.”
The hospital system’s Department of Family Medicine received two education grants from the federal government that will support medical education in Franklin County at 48 Sanderson St. One of the grants is a $750,000 Health Resources & Services Administration grant that will assist with the family medicine residency development over the next three years, while the other, an Area Health Education Center grant for $100,000, will support medical student experiences in the next year.
“Behavioral health will also be a part of this,” Baldor said. “These doctors, once they get through their residency, will address problems across the spectrum.”
Residents will spend three years in the program. They will not only work out of Baystate Franklin’s family medical practice at 48 Sanderson St. under doctors and professors guidance, seeing patients on a regular basis, but they will also practice within the hospital across the street.
“Resident doctors will be embedded in the Greenfield practice,” Baldor said. “After three years, which will be a service-learning-type training, doctors will be trained to follow an entire family through their entire lives.”
The vision, Baldor said, is for Baystate Franklin to develop an interdisciplinary team based on the care of an entire family with their own unique needs. They will work with specialists and others, but will be trained to handle, for instance, heart issues that aren’t necessarily in need of a specialist.
“If someone is in the early stages of heart failure, for instance, a family medicine doctor could take care of them, while someone in later stages of the same would have to work with both that doctor and a specialist,” he said.
Baldor said the hospital system will renovate spaces within the building at 48 Sanderson St., which will require some fundraising in the future — it is expected to cost around $2 million to do so.
“This will continue to reinvigorate the community and its hospital,” he said. “There’s definitely a layer of excitement over this.”
Baldor said the program hopes to attract some of the best doctors from across the country to Greenfield and the surrounding area.
“As we get closer to opening, we’ll be recruiting med school graduates,” he said. “We’re thinking doctors will come to the area — most live within 10 to 15 miles of where they work — bringing their families.”
He said it will not only be good for the hospital and community, but for schools and the local economy.
“It’s very likely that after their residency is over, a doctor will settle in the area, so we’re looking at this as a long-term investment for the hospital and Franklin County,” Baldor said. “(Baystate Franklin) will truly be a full-service community hospital where people can get all of their care in one place. That’s efficient.
“These doctors will be completely hands-on and will be involved in every aspect of care,” he continued. “They will treat everything from dermatological issues to high blood pressure to opioid addiction to pediatric conditions. This is a very good thing for Franklin County.”
The program is in the process of becoming accredited. In the meantime, Baldor and those working with him are assessing who will become members of the faculty, and eventually, candidates for the program will be interviewed so that they can start their residencies.
The target date for the first family medicine interns to start training at Baystate Franklin is July 1, 2022.
“It’s going to take a community to train a family doctor,” he said.
Reach Anita Fritz at 413-772-9591 or afritz@recorder.com.