Marian Regional Medical Center Family Medicine Residents Perform Sports Physicals on Local Public High School Athletes

With COVID-19 precautions in place, resident physicians to perform physicals to help ready high school athletes for return to athletic programs

SANTA MARIA, CA – September 16, 2020 – For the past four years, resident physicians from Marian Regional Medical Center’s Family Medicine Residency Program have been performing free sports physicals as a service to local athletes. Due to COVID-19, sports programs were all but cancelled, but with programs resuming locally next week, the resident physicians are providing physicals to local high school students early this week.  

Each year, between 600 and 800 sports physicals are performed on local athletes by Marian’s resident physicians. Family Medicine Center Resident Physicians collaborate with the high school athletic trainers and directors to facilitate the physicals, which are necessary in order to compete. 

“Typically, students come to the Family Medicine Center at Marian Regional Medical Center to obtain their physical,” says Family Medicine Residency Program Director Willard Chung, MD. “We want to provide this service to our community athletes in a safe and effective way, so we instead opted to perform the physicals at the school sites to ensure they received the medical attention needed to resume their sports programs.” 

In order to protect the safety of the students, their family members, and the physicians, this year’s physicals will be done in a different manner. With nine rows of cars allowing for safe social distancing, students will be able to step out of their cars and evaluated by a resident. 

The Marian Family Medicine Residency Program is a three-year post-graduate program for physicians. By establishing a family medicine residency program, the hospital could provide the educational opportunities and patient experiences necessary to produce outstanding family medicine physicians and meet the critical need to continue adding family physicians in our region and throughout the nation.

To learn more about Marian’s Family Medicine Residency Program, click here. 

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About Marian Regional Medical Center
Marian Regional Medical Center, located in Santa Maria, California, is rated among the top 10% in the nation for cardiac care and its cancer program is distinguished as the only comprehensive Community Cancer Center on the Central Coast.The need to meet the demand for quality, technologically-advanced care for a growing community led Marian to open its doors to a new state-of-the-art, 191-bed facility in the spring of 2012. The new facility houses the largest and most comprehensive perinatology/neonatology service providing the most compassionate, quality care to the littlest of patients. Marian is a Dignity Health member of the Central Coast, which also includes Arroyo Grande Community Hospital in Arroyo Grande, CA and French Hospital Medical Center in San Luis Obispo, CA. Dignity Health of the Central Coast is an integrated network of top quality hospitals, physicians from the most prestigious medical schools, and comprehensive outpatient services including primary care offices, premier ambulatory surgery centers, technologically-advanced laboratories and imaging centers and a full service home health agency; all recognized for quality, safety and service.  Each hospital is supported by an active philanthropic Foundation to help meet the growing health care needs of our communities.