Message from our Chiefs

Greetings and welcome to the St. Joseph’s Family Medicine Residency Program Website! We are grateful you could take the time to explore our website, and hopefully learn a few of our secrets along the way!

The very essence of Family Medicine is balance. We are lucky to be one of the rare specialties in medicine that can treat patients from all walks of life and in a multitude of settings. Our program has placed great emphasis on providing opportunities to our Residents to balance inpatient and outpatient learning. We have a great relationship with our hospitalists and specialists, who are generous in sharing their knowledge. While on the inpatient service, we have our own interdisciplinary rounding team at SJMC - working closely with pharmacy. 

We have an equally robust outpatient clinic life, where you will confidently learn to care for patients for 3 years, and eventually a lifetime. An integral part of our residency program is our continuity clinic with CMC on Channel Street in downtown Stockton. As a part of the only FQHC system in the area, we provide invaluable services to the county’s underserved population often on a no fee or discounted pay schedule. In the clinic, our patient panels include full spectrum care from newborns, pediatrics/adolescents, OBGYN, geriatrics, and a separate procedures clinic. And there is no greater affirmation than to know you will have the confidence to deliver a baby, see a full panel of clinic patients, perform a joint injection, insert a Nexplanon, see a consult on the hospital floor, and round on SNF patients, which can all be in day’s work for Family Medicine physicians! In essence, all the stones have been turned to help support us in becoming well-rounded practitioners.

Our core faculty and Program Director are devoted to our learning and success and are as  lovely to collaborate with for patient care, as they are to share life experiences. Perhaps the greatest blessing of all is the camaraderie we, as residents within the program, share. We strive to build each other daily, encourage each other when the days are hard and celebrate all the goodness in between. We also love to eat, we love to exercise (some of us!), we love to explore. Lucky that Lake Tahoe, Yosemite, Redding, The Bay, Sacramento, and so much more are all a hop and a skip away. Within Stockton, you will find a vibrant and diverse community with plenty of wineries, breweries, farmers markets - including the oldest Asian farmer’s market on the west coast, and parks and waterways to explore!

It is worth noting the beauty of spending your Residency experience at a community hospital like St. Joseph's. We serve a community truly in need, from all cultural and socio-economic backgrounds. To have the privilege to help care for these wonderful and benevolent patients is a powerful reminder of why we chose this profession.

We welcome you to the next chapter of this incredible journey, which no doubt has been full of sacrifice, hard work, and perseverance. We wish each and every one of you future success in your careers. Family Medicine is a beautiful specialty, and we would be thrilled to have you join us someday.

Sincerely,

 

Inpatient Administrative Chief: Alan Shahbazi, DO 
Outpatient and Obstetrics Administrative Chief: Daniella Volaric, MD 
Education, Wellness and Social Media Chief: Duc-Huy Nguyen, MD