UTSW Family Medicine Clinic opens at Texas Health Dallas

By Casey Conway

Dr. David Schneider
Dr. David Schneider

The UT Southwestern Family Medicine Residency Program and clinical practice at Texas Health Dallas opened to patient care on June 5. This marks an expansion of UT Southwestern’s geographic footprint and the first academic program to launch in an alliance with Texas Health Resources.

Both the program and clinic resulted from academic affiliations under the umbrella of Southwestern Health Resources, the clinically integrated network that is bringing together the strengths of UT Southwestern and Texas Health Resources. Formed in 2015, this collaboration is making it easier for North Texans to access the highest-quality care, delivered consistently in a responsive and coordinated manner.

The nearly 10,000-square-foot facility, which is located at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital Dallas, provides residents of the North Dallas community improved access to high-quality primary care physicians and health resources.

The July 13 ribbon-cutting for the facility marked a celebration of exciting new opportunities for residents and physician faculty involved in UTSW’s Family and Community Medicine Residency Program, expanded to a new Southwestern Health Resources residency track.

“This opening really has many dimensions to it, and this is an important milestone for the UT Southwestern Family and Community Medicine Program,” said Dr. J. Gregory Fitz, Executive Vice President for Academic Affairs and Provost, and Dean of the UT Southwestern Medical School. “Our organizational mission is a blend of patient care, research, and education, and this new opportunity allows us to bring those together in a way that makes our teaching and population health even better.”

Dr. David Schneider, Chairman of the Department of Family and Community Medicine, said the combination of academic and clinical environments in settings such as the new Clinic can be transformational.

“The impact for our residency training is that it allows us to expand to train more family physicians, strengthening primary care for the Dallas community,” Dr. Schneider said. “It also gives us the opportunity to develop an innovative, future-oriented training program, embracing concepts such as population health and integrating this into the education of our future family physicians.”

The Southwestern Health Resources Family and Community Medicine residency track at Texas Health Dallas has 12 family medicine residency slots – four for each year of the three-year residency program. Residents will have the unique opportunity to rotate through a variety of areas, ranging from obstetrics to surgery. The new residency positions will be in addition to the existing 30 residency slots – 10 per year over three years – already available through UT Southwestern’s Family Medicine Residency Program.

At the event, Dr. Schneider introduced the first four residents accepted into the new track, who all started July 1.

“These residents will benefit from the community-hospital atmosphere provided through this particular residency training site, and they will also have the rare opportunity to shape the experience and define the educational scope of this program for future residents,” Dr. Schneider said.

Dr. Schneider also recognized the hard work of the faculty members who will be leading the new residency program – Dr. Dan Sepdham, Associate Residency Director and Associate Professor of Family and Community Medicine, and Dr. Mahdi Awwad and Dr. Joe Ventimiglia, both Assistant Professors of Family and Community Medicine.

“We are excited about this new partnership and what it means for our residents and the community,” Dr. Schneider said. “We expect this program to focus on teaching family physicians how to practice in a value-based care environment that allows them to develop an understanding of population health in a way that family physicians have not been trained on in the past.”  

Dr. Fitz holds the Nadine and Tom Craddick Distinguished Chair in Medical Science, and the Atticus James Gill, M.D. Chair in Medical Science.

Dr. Schneider holds the Perry E. Gross, M.D. Distinguished Chair in Family Medicine.

Dr. Sepdham holds the Drs. Malone V. Hill and John W. Pate Professorship in Family Medicine.