COMBINED FAMILY MEDICINE
In February, 1995, the American Board of Family Practice and the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology distributed their guidelines for a combined residency training program in Family Medicine-Psychiatry to residency training directors in the United States. At the University of California, San Diego (UCSD), we are delighted to be among the first to have an accredited, combined program. After obtaining accreditation, we started our inaugural class in July, 1997. As of July 2000, there are seven residents in the Combined Residency Program. At program maturity, there will be a total of ten residents in the Combined Residency Program, with two in each year. The relatively small size of the Combined Residency Program enables us to have a very strong esprit de corps among the residents and very close collegial relationship between residents and faculty.

The Family Medicine Residency Training Program and the Psychiatry Residency Training Program at UCSD are mature programs with a history of more than 20 years each of training resident physicians. Both programs are nationally recognized for excellence in the caliber of their faculty, residents, training programs, research and clinical care. Both disciplines recognize that they share many common interests in all of these areas, and the opportunity to develop a combined Family Medicine-Psychiatry Residency Training Program was met by both departments with high enthusiasm. A resident in the combined residency spends approximately equal amounts of time working with the faculty in each department, and interested applicants are encouraged to review the UCSD Psychiatry Residency brochure and the full UCSD Family Medicine Residency web site to get a sense of the departments, programs and faculty.

The Combined Residency's collaboration with St. Vincent de Paul Village
St. Vincent de Paul Village is a world-renown comprehensive continuum of services to the homeless community of San Diego. Founded by the Catholic Diocese of San Diego, it is now a non-denominational, Federally recognized non-profit corporation. St. Vincent de Paul Village truly is a "village" in which individuals and families may live for up to two years, and the team of physicians in the UCSD Combined Family Medcine-Psychiatry Residency Program are the "family doctors" and psychiatrists for the Village. Many residency programs have contributed valuable service to homeless medical clinics in the past, but this program's collaboration with St. Vincent de Paul Village is believed to be the first time that a Combined Family Medicine-Psychiatry Residency Program has established its full "out-patient home base" for continuity of care in such a "Village Medical Clinic" in service to the homeless community. This is a collaboration in which truly "everyone wins". For more information about St. Vincent de Paul Village, please visit their web site at: http://www.fatherjoesvillages.org.