A Message from Dr. Baughman, Program Director

When I joined this residency program as an intern in 1977, the program was known as one of the better ones in the state at that time - very good but not excellent. I dove into my training wholeheartedly and at the end of three years, felt extremely competent, confident, and ready to enter the private practice of Family Medicine in a small, rural town.

The learning in my first year of private practice equaled the intensity of my internship year, a fact for every physician's first year. During the year I realized there were some holes in my formal education that I had to fix on my own since my residency program had not prepared me completely. As time went on I dreamed of going back to my old program, sharing the additional knowledge I learned over and above my residency training, and eventually get in to a leadership position to where I could fix my discovered training inadequacies so no future training graduates would graduate with any such deficits of knowledge and experience.

In 1990 I fulfilled my life's dream by returning to the Spartanburg Family Medicine Residency Program as the residency program director. It is 15 years later now and I assure you...

As you review our web page, I want to let you know a few things about our place and the people about whom you will read.

Never in our 35-year history has this program been stronger than it is today! Over the 15 years of the continuity of my leadership as director, I have been fortunate to develop an outstanding faculty. The faculty is the finest group of dedicated educators with whom I have ever had the privilege to work. Every faculty member including my full-time faculty in Family Medicine, Pediatrics, OB/GYN, and Internal Medicine, are here because they love to teach Family Medicine Residents! They are professional role models that a resident would be proud and pleased to follow. The vast majority have been awarded the "Teacher of the Year" award from residents over the years. Many have received formal education in teaching, curriculum design and evaluation techniques. It is safe to say that this faculty's heart is in the right place when it comes to Family Medicine education.

I am often asked what is the difference between university-based and community-based programs. In Spartanburg, you will experience a unique situation that blends the strengths of both! The common answer to the above question is that in a university-based program you receive excellent depth of training in multiple specialties because of the university specialty faculty. A common university-based deficit is that you do not have the best first access to clinical training since patients are filtered through the other services before they get to you. This is contrasted with the fact that the strength of most community programs is superb clinical access to a diverse group of patients. Yet an all to frequent deficit is that you may not get the intense depth of training in the multiple specialties. Of course, these are generalizations, and there are many fine programs of each type as well. But we think we have a situation that maintains the strengths of both community AND university programs.

Spartanburg is unique in that we have full-time paid faculty in Pediatrics (4), OB/GYN (2), Internal Medicine (5), and of course Family Medicine (9) whose sole purpose is to teach their specialty to Family Medicine Residents. We are an enhanced program. There is no opposition here! We have a General Surgery Program and a Transitional Internship in our hospital. The Transitional Interns work seamlessly with you on your first year rotations, often ensuring that your call is no more frequent than every fifth night. The General Surgery Program is an enhancement in that upper and lower endoscopy, trauma and procedural training for family medicine residents is facilitated for us. Our residents work side-by-side with the Surgery Residents as mutually supportive team members. We generate cases and provide medical support for them and our residents benefit from the procedural training supervised by faculty surgeons.

A unique focus of our program is Behavioral Medicine. Any practicing family physician will tell you that one-fourth to one-third of all the patients they see have psychological, psychiatric, or sociological roots as the origin of their difficulties. Our program is centered on the hub of Behavioral Medicine. You have a two-month required rotation in the second year, which will formally give you superior training in one of the core curriculum differences in Family Medicine training versus any other primary care specialty.

Our OB/GYN training is known in the Southeast as the best available. We have the only Family Medicine/Obstetrical Fellowship in a three state area. You work with and learn from family physicians, fulltime and community obstetricians, the county's only two perinatologists, three nurse midwives, a family medicine OB fellow and a third year OB/GYN resident from the Medical University of South Carolina. The experience is broad and the training is unexcelled!

We also have a rural residency site in the small town of Chesnee, SC, 13 miles away from the main residency site. Here two residents in the second and third year do their continuity practice in this truly rural practice setting under the supervision of our faculty physicians.

Against a backdrop of declining match rates in Family Medicine residency programs, we have been fortunate to fully match 11 out of the last 15 years, including 2005. The medical staff frequently remarks about how impressed they are with the quality, intelligence, and professionalism of our Family Medicine Residents - year after year. We have a tradition of excellence in the quality of our residents and the teaching they receive. Teaching is a tradition for the medical staff of Spartanburg Regional Medical Center. This has been a teaching hospital for over 40 years. Those that volunteer to assist you - either through consults, community-based rotations, or just to answer questions and lend a helping hand include many private practice physicians that enjoy teaching. We encourage those whose heart and motivation is in teaching to be involved in our residency program.

Spartanburg Regional Medical Center is an outstanding tertiary referral center with a long history of medical education of which it is most proud. Our hospital is also considered a leader in patient care and education in the state of SC. We have the busiest Emergency Department in the state (86,000 visits/yr.). Recently opened, we have the most modern Emergency Department in the nation. Five years of planning went in to developing this new ED and it is designed to meet the needs of this community 25 years in to the future. SRMC is a Level 1 Trauma Center. We have a Level 3 Neonatal Intensive Care Nursery, one of the few in the state. We are considered innovators in many areas. For instance, in 2001 we were voted one of the Top 100 Heart hospitals in the United States. In 2003 and 2004, we were voted one of the Top 100 Most Computerized Hospitals in the US. In 2005 we opened South Carolina's first certified Chest Pain Center. People come from far and wide to see our systems and see how we deliver superior patient care. In addition, our hospital takes the lead in political activities and the support of medical care and access for all citizens. We are one of the only hospitals around that has a gain-sharing plan. If the hospital meets its bottom-line, above a certain level, the rest is shared with the employees. In each of the last 23 years, our 2nd and 3rd year residents have benefited by a bonus check that has averaged almost $1,400.00. Also, in the last JCAHO accreditation, the hospital received a score higher than 99% of the hospitals in the United States. This superior institution well supports its Family Medicine Residency Program.

We invite you to take a close look at this outstanding program in this wonderful institution nestled in the beautiful foothills of South Carolina. The true heart of any program is its people. I invite you to come visit and meet some of the finest men and women with whom I have ever had the privilege of working. My residents represent the future leaders and practitioners of this most wonderful of all specialties. They and my faculty and staff are the heart and soul of what is truly one of the strongest programs in the United States. We love what we do, we love where we work and learn, and we look forward to sharing this true pearl in Family Medicine with you.

Otis Baughman, M.D.