Greetings from University of Minnesota / St. Cloud Hospital Family Medicine Residency.

In residency programs, summer always brings both beginnings and endings. This year we say goodbye to four fine graduates who completed their training and are now in the process of beginning their new careers.

Carmen Buiceag-Arama, MD is considering opportunities to practice in one of the St. Cloud clinics starting in the Fall of 2009. Nam Ho, MD will be joining Fairview in Brooklyn Park MN starting September 2009. Suhail Jafrey, MD is considering several options in the Twin Cities, Augusta, GA and Las Vegas, NV for a career as a hospitalist and Jessica Kumar, MD will be continuing to work at the residency in Urgent Care until she finds her ideal practice.

We welcome our new PGY-1 class. Starting on July 1 were Toby Christie-Perkins, DO (our former 3rd and 4th year DO medical student from Kirksville, MO), Zainab Elsarawy, MD, Kelly Halderman, MD, Manju Pandey, MD and Jasvir Singh, MD. We are already getting outstanding reports from multiple areas of the hospital regarding their excellent work.

Two new third year medical students from Kirksville College of Osteopathic Medicine joined us in late June to perform their clinical clerkships at St. Cloud Hospital. We welcome Adam Putschoegl and Matthew Timp. They join our two fourth year students who have now completed their third year clerkships, Trent Anderson and Jenny Lien.

In addition to providing clerkship training for osteopathic students, we have recently been approved for dual accreditation with the American Osteopathic Association. We are excited about the opportunity to provide comprehensive osteopathic education as part of our program.

We welcome Dr. Kevin Switzer as a new faculty member starting in September 2009. He has over 20 years of experience as a family physician practicing in the Willmar, MN area. We say goodbye to Chris Wenner, MD after five years of dedicated service. Dr. Wenner has opened a private practice in the Cold Spring area. We are pleased that he will remain involved in the residency program by coordinating our practice management curriculum, teaching residents when on call, performing procedures with our residents, and involved with research projects through our program.

We are now in the process of gearing up for interview season. It’s always exciting to meet so many students and physicians that are interested in family medicine training. Applications are accepted through ERAS and we will start interviews in mid-October. We are happy to now provide osteopathic training as well and encourage osteopathic students and graduates to apply. If you are interested in training with great people in a great place, we look forward to hearing from you.

We enjoy having students do clerkships with us. If you would like to spend some time with us, contact Renee Sauve for more information at sauver@centracare.com or 320-240-3182.