Family Medicine Residency at JFK University Medical Center
Welcome from the Chair
Professor and Founding Chair, Department of Family Medicine
Hackensack Meridian School of Medicine
Chair, Department of Family Medicine,
JFK University Medical Center
DIO, HMH Central Region
Welcome to JFK’s Family Medicine Department and Residency Program.
It is an exciting time for Graduate Medical Education (GME) at JFK University Medical Center (JFKUMC). In addition to JFKUMC’s existing residencies in Family Medicine, Neurology and Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, Raritan Bay Medical Center’s Internal Medicine Residency is relocating to JFKUMC starting July 1, 2025. We also submitted an application to start a new General Surgery Residency with an anticipated starting date of July 1, 2025. These new residencies in addition to JFKUMC’s existing programs will add to the richness and teaching environment that already exist at JFKUMC.
The core of the Family Medicine Department is our Family Medicine Center (FMC). The FMC includes the full scope of Family Medicine from prenatal care to Geriatrics. We are an NCQA Patient-Centered Medical Home and a certified Centering Pregnancy prenatal group visit practice. We also have a full time Care Manager to help our high risk patients and a Social Worker to assist our vulnerable patients.
In addition to our residency program, we have an active interprofessional student learning environment. We routinely have medical students doing their Family Medicine Clerkship from Hackensack Meridian School of Medicine and St. George’s University School of Medicine. In affiliation with the Rutgers Ernest Mario School of Pharmacy, we also have pharmacy students doing an ambulatory care rotation with our office’s PharmD, Dr. Joseph Walter, PharmD, BCPS. Dr. Guth, PsyD, Behavior Scientist, has also had a graduate level psychology extern from Rutgers University rotate with her in the office.
As you explore our website, we hope you will be excited by our Department's extensive clinical and educational opportunities and choose to apply to our residency program.
Best of Luck
Welcome from the Program Director
Residency Program Director
Thank you for your interest in the JFK Family Medicine Residency Program! Our program is well-established and has been training residents since 1976. We are fortunate to be able to serve a patient population, mainly from Middlesex and Union county, that is diverse in many ways including in socioeconomic status, race and ethnicity, health insurance and age distribution. Our mission is to provide compassionate and comprehensive patient care that takes into account the socioeconomic and cultural context of our patients. While we strive to provide each one of our patients and their families with the individualized care that fits their unique challenges, we also value community service and advocacy. We excel in this mission due to the unique strengths of our program.
Our program provides training that is full spectrum and includes outpatient primary care, hospital medicine, reproductive care, prenatal care, obstetrics, sports medicine, osteopathic manipulative treatment and community health. In addition, we consider mental health services and teaching to be an essential part of our program and center. Our behavioral scientist plays an important role in the development of our behavioral health curriculum as well as in providing direct patient care. From day 1, residents manage their own patient panel at our Family Medicine center, a patient centered medical home composed of a robust multidisciplinary team. We are able to provide our patients with services including social work, pharmacy, and nutrition all within our center. Our center is rich and fosters interdisciplinary relationships among different health professionals, including residents, who work together in quality improvement projects to assess and improve the health of our patients. We value continuity with our patients in the ambulatory setting as well as in the hospital setting, where we care for them on our adult inpatient and newborn services. We also have active subacute rehabilitation and long term care practices as well. While we excel in training strong primary care physicians, we support our residents in their unique clinical interests.
Our program strongly supports the well-being of our residents and stresses the importance of a healthy work-life balance. While we are committed to ensuring that our residents graduate with the strongest clinical skills possible, we also understand the importance of family and life outside of the work environment. We foster this balance by creating a supportive environment within the residency program itself. Celebrations for holidays, birthdays and baby showers are common at our Family Medicine Center. Moreover, residents enjoy outings among themselves. Edison and nearby towns offer a variety of fun activities. Moreover, we are in close proximity to New York City and Philadelphia.
Upon completion of our program, our graduates go on to confidently practice as fellows or directly into practice as primary care physicians, hospitalists, medical educators in rural, suburban, and urban areas. We seek residents who are committed to growing their clinical skills and to providing meaningful patient care. We hope you share our values and invite you to apply to our residency program!
Message from the Osteopathic Program Director
Osteopathic Program Director
We are very excited to share that the JFK Family Medicine Residency Program received initial Osteopathic Recognition from the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education in 2024. Starting with the 2024-2025 academic year, our program is implementing a more formal osteopathic curriculum with the goal of teaching osteopathic principles and developing the OMT skills for all residents and faculty. Our curriculum allows for the ongoing education of osteopathic principles and practice through multiple modalities throughout all three years of residency, both for osteopathic and allopathic residents. Our program has grown to now have four DO attendings as core faculty. This allows for further growth and implementation of osteopathic training. This is a very exciting time for our program and we look forward to the osteopathic curriculum enriching the overall educational experience for our residents and ultimately improvement of our patients’ wellness and experience!
Program Overview
- To educate new family physicians to provide patients with a personal medical home that ensures access to comprehensive, compassionate medical care through collaborative and ongoing relationships with our patients and health care teams. Our graduates will be innovative leaders of health care who have the skills for lifelong learning.
- Educate our residents in the principles of the Patient-Centered Medical Home
- Residents will be able to lead a multidisciplinary team delivering health care for an identified population
- Develop skills to understand the principles of research, how to critically read medical literature, and participate in scholarly activities utilizing their office as a clinical laboratory.
- Upon completion of the program, residents will be able to competently and independently practice the full scope of Family Medicine across the life span in the ambulatory, hospital, post-acute and long-term care settings.
- Develop skills in Osteopathic Principles and Practice for the promotion of patient and community health and wellness.
The program seeks residents committed to their education and provides the atmosphere and opportunities where this commitment can be nurtured and grow.
The JFK Family Medicine Residency Program has maintained its tradition of excellence in teaching since 1976. Family Medicine residents have the opportunity to interact and collaborate with residents from the Internal Medicine, Neurology, Physical Medicine, and Rehabilitation residencies at the medical center. A new Surgery residency program will likely be joining in July 2025. There are comprehensive ancillary services in the hospital to ensure that residents are not overburdened with “scut work”, providing adequate time for patient care and learning.
The Family Medicine Residency Program is affiliated with the Hackensack Meridian School of Medicine, Rutgers-Robert Wood Johnson Medical School and St. George’s University School of Medicine. The residency program is active in teaching core rotations in Family Medicine to students from our affiliated medical schools.
We are located in Edison, New Jersey, a diverse suburban community close to New York City, Philadelphia, the Jersey Shore, and the Watchung mountains. A warm learning environment, along with our energetic faculty and innovative curriculum, make our program second to none.