Cook county health and hospitals system program family medicine residency

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Welcome from the Director
Program Director
Core Faculty
PrimeCare Faculty

Welcome from the Director

Welcome to the Family Medicine Residency Program at AMITA Health Saints Mary and Elizabeth Medical Center (AHSMEMC). Established in 2008, our program has deep roots in the community, having been created through the integration of two established residencies that together had more than 60 years combined experience training family doctors. AHSMEMC, which recently became part of the AMITA Health System, prides itself in delivering high-quality care. For five consecutive years, the hospital has received an "A" from the Leapfrog Group for its safety record.

The program's commitment to community and quality extends to the ambulatory setting as well. Our long-standing relationship with a Federally Qualified Health Center, PrimeCare Community Health, provides our residents with a rich ambulatory experience. And while the training we offer is delivered in a vibrant, inner-city environment, we believe it imparts the skills and confidence needed to practice in any setting.

Family medicine at Saints Mary and Elizabeth is the hospital's only sponsored medical training program (the medical center also has a podiatry residency and hosts visiting internal medicine and psychiatry residents in various clinical areas). This arrangement distinguishes us from most other programs in Chicago. By being the only teaching program, residents receive extensive hands-on experience and personal attention from faculty, attendings and hospital staff.

Additionally, the continuity clinic experience is a joint venture with our ambulatory health partner, PrimeCare, where residents care for patients at one of our two community teaching health centers. This unique environment fosters a culture of "patient ownership." From the moment they enter the program, residents are encouraged to accept responsibility for patient care. We believe that developing competency and confidence can only come from being accountable to patients and their families. At Saints Mary and Elizabeth, residents grow personally and professionally because they become a part of our community, supported by their peers and mentored by a committed group of family medicine faculty and subspecialists who enjoy their roles as teachers.

AHSMEMC is a technologically advanced community hospital located in an exciting and culturally diverse area just minutes away from downtown Chicago. Our location offers residents the opportunity to treat people from many different backgrounds with a broad range of medical needs. In addition to seeing patients at one of two community-based clinics in the area, residents may also rotate at other area hospitals, as well as learn about our patients through interactions with community groups. Candidates interested in the care of underserved populations and cross-cultural medicine will find the program especially appealing.

Saints Mary and Elizabeth Medical Center offers a well-rounded training experience that emphasizes community-based care in an urban setting. However, our graduates have found that the experience translates into employment opportunities across the country, including rural, suburban and inner city locations. We believe that the curriculum provides exciting possibilities for challenge, growth, and discovery — all designed to prepare you to be a skilled, caring family doctor.

For more information, please contact our coordinator of medical education, Marisol Vargas, at 312.770.2858 or write her at .

Yours truly,

Alicia Vazquez, MD
Program Director
Family Medicine Residency Program

Program Director
	Alicia Vazquez, MD Program Director Dr. Alicia Vazquez joined AMITA Health Saints Mary and Elizabeth Medical Center as the Program Director for the Family Medicine Residency Program in 2016. She came to us from John H. Stroger Hospital where she served as Associate Program Director for the Cook County-Loyola Family Medicine Residency Program for over 10 years. Prior to that, she also worked as a clinician for the Denver county hospital–Denver Health and Hospital System and as faculty with the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center Family Medicine Residency Program. She received her medical degree from the University of Illinois College of Medicine and completed her Family Medicine Residency training at Cook County Hospital in Chicago. She was selected for the Faculty of the Year Award while in Denver in 2001 and for the Teacher of the Year Award while at the Cook County-Loyola Program in 2008. Dr. Vazquez has several interests, including underserved care, women's health and faculty development. All her previous and present clinical positions have involved providing care for underserved populations. While at Stroger Hospital, she obtained a Faculty Development Fellowship and then became the Faculty Development Fellowship Program Director for seven years. She lives in Evanston with her husband and two children. She enjoys traveling and going for walks by Lake Michigan.
Core Faculty
	Alicia Milan-Flanigan, MD Associate Director of Academic Affairs Alicia Milan-Flanigan is an International Medical Graduate who received her medical degree from the Universidad Autonoma de San Luis Potosi, Mexico. She completed her residency in Family Medicine at the University of Illinois at Rockford, serving as a Chief Resident in her last year. She was named Outstanding Family Practice Resident and received the Resident Teaching Award by the Society of Teachers of Family Medicine. Upon graduation, Alicia worked as a primary care physician at PrimeCare, a FQHC, and as a community preceptor in the residency program. One year later, Dr. Milan joined the Family Medicine Residency Program of Saints Mary and Elizabeth Medical Center as a full time faculty member. She is currently the associate program director and the Maternity Care and Women's Health curriculum coordinator. Board Certified in Family Medicine, she is active in the Society of Teachers of Family Medicine and is a member of the American Academy of Family Physicians (AAFP) and the American Society for Colposcopy and Cervical Pathology (ASCCP). She holds faculty appointments in the Department of Family Medicine at the University of Illinois College of Medicine and Rosalind Franklin University of Medicine and Science. Dr. Milan has special interests in women's health, obstetrics, adolescent health, and office procedures. She and her husband David live in Lincoln Park and enjoy many of the same activities: golfing, biking, camping, entertaining and cooking. They don't, however, share interest in the same baseball team (her, Cubs; him, Sox)!
	Stephanie Place, MD Dr. Stephanie Place joined the residency program in 2014 as a member of the core faculty. She obtained her medical degree from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, then completed her residency training and a Faculty Development fellowship at the Northwestern McGaw Family Medicine Residency. Dr. Place grew up in a rural area of Wisconsin, served on month-long medical outreach trips in Guatemala and Zambia during training, and completed her residency at an FQHC-based program in Humboldt Park. These experiences cemented her dedication to providing culturally sensitive healthcare to underserved populations. Her clinical interests include behavioral health, addiction, and provider wellness. In her free time, Dr. Place enjoys camping, hiking and volunteering with ecological restoration projects.
	Mari Egan, MD Mari Egan MD, MHPE received her medical degree from Rush Medical College in Chicago, IL and on the first day of medical school, she met and fell in love with her husband, who is also a family medicine physician. She signed up for the Alternative Curriculum where her curriculum had no lectures and just case-based, self-directed learning. This program got her excited in how learners incorporate and problem solve medical knowledge. She then went to Providence Family Medicine residency in Seattle, Washington which is a program just like Saints Mary and Elizabeth. She came back to work at Cook County hospital where she completed the faculty development fellowship as well as obtaining a Master's in Health Professional Education. She then worked at Northwestern University Medical School where she was the co-director for the Patient, Physician and Society curriculum for the medical school and the first family medicine doctor to have an "Egan College" of medical students. She then moved to the Southside and worked at the University of Chicago medical school, where she was Pre-Doctoral director for the Department of Family Medicine. She joined this residency's faculty in 2017. She has been an Emerging Leader fellow in the Society of Teachers in Family Medicine and an AAMC Women's Leadership fellow. She was awarded the IAFP Teacher of the Year award in 2011, the 2012 AAMC Humanism in Medicine award from University of Chicago as well as their Faculty Service Award and became a fellow of the University of Chicago's Academy of Distinguished Medical Educators. She has been a NBME writer of test questions and worked in China on primary care capacity building as well as creating their first Family Medicine clerkship in a medical school. She is involved in research in medical education as well as translational research and has published in Academic Medicine, Journal of Family Medicine, American Family Physicians as well as several book chapters. She believes this residency has some of the best faculty she has ever met as well as a strong commitment to the underserved and social justice. All the reasons why she went into Family Medicine in the first place.
	Juliet Bradley, MD, FAAFP Dr. Juliet Bradley is a Chicago native who joined the faculty of the AMITA Health Saints Mary & Elizabeth Family Medicine Residency Program in July 2019. She received her undergraduate degree from the University of Notre Dame and her medical degree from Southern Illinois University. She completed her residency training at Cook County Hospital, where she stayed on as residency faculty until 2018. She served as the medical director for Cook County's Dr. Jorge Prieto Family Health Center in Chicago's Little Village from 2013–2018. She completed a part-time fellowship in Faculty Development at Cook County Hospital in 2001, and completed a Leading Change fellowship through STFM in 2017. She holds a faculty appointment at Loyola University's Stritch School of Medicine. Dr. Bradley has received a number of teaching awards, including Teacher of the Year, Outstanding Performance and Exceptional Commitment and Outstanding Teacher. She has presented at STFM and AAFP Assembly. She co-facilitated a support group for survivors of intimate partner violence from 1999–2014. She has performed forensic exams on torture survivors to help them obtain political asylum. She has participated in medical mission trips to Mexico, Guatemala and the Dominican Republic; in 2018, she was the volunteer medical director at the Centro de Salud Santa Clotilde in the Peruvian Amazon. Dr. Bradley's interests include underserved medicine, family medicine obstetrics, intimate partner violence and physician resilience. She has taught the Healer's Art course and published some personal medical reflections. She lives in Wicker Park with her 11-year-old son; she enjoys vegetarian cooking, travel and a wide variety of music. She is very excited to be part of the faculty group of AMITA Saints Mary & Elizabeth; it feels like home!
	Dorothy Dschida, MD Dr. Dorothy Dschida is a faculty physician with the family medicine residency program at AMITA Health Saints Mary and Elizabeth Medical Center Chicago. She earned her medical degree at Loyola University Chicago Stritch School of Medicine and her master's in bioethics and health policy at Loyola University Chicago. She completed a family medicine residency at the Northwestern McGaw Family Medicine Residency Program at Humboldt Park. Over the past six years as a faculty member, Dr. Dschida has worked on several projects focused on improving inpatient clinical skills for residents through simulation, as well as outpatient quality improvement training. Her clinical work encompasses full-spectrum outpatient medicine in our partner Federally Qualified Health Center, PrimeCare Health. She also supervises the inpatient adult medicine resident service. During her free time, she enjoys spending time with her two young children and gardening.
	Limor Gildenblatt, PhD, LCSW Behavioral Health Faculty Dr. Gildenblatt is a medical family therapist and licensed clinical social worker (LCSW). She joined the faculty at AMITA Saints Mary & Elizabeth in 2020. Dr. Gildenblatt transferred from the family medicine residency program at AMITA Health Resurrection Medical Center Chicago, where she was the director of behavioral science for four years. Prior to that, she spent one year as a doctoral fellow at the Chicago Center for Family Health and the family medicine residency program at Advocate Illinois Masonic Medical Center. Dr. Gildenblatt has had extensive experience treating individuals, couples and families in healthcare settings, both inpatient and outpatient. Her dissertation studies at Saint Louis University focused on physician wellness and she has fallen in love with working in medical education ever since. In 2018, the Society of Teachers of Family Medicine awarded Dr. Gildenblatt a fellowship in behavioral science/family systems education. Dr. Gildenblatt enjoys teaching residents about patient-doctor communication skills and behavioral health topics in primary care. She is passionate about promoting health and wellness practices for physicians in order to help prevent and mitigate burnout. In her personal life, Dr. Gildenblatt enjoys spending time with her husband and kids, traveling, spinning, yoga and exploring the wine-and-dine scene in Chicago!
	Lisa Stevak, MeD, MA Community Medicine Faculty Lisa Stevak joined the program in 2008 and is responsible for the longitudinal community medicine and cultural competency curricula. She brings over 15 years of experience in the areas of health disparities, cultural competency, language acquisition, community partnership building, and curriculum design and evaluation to the residency program. In keeping with SMEMC's mission, Ms. Stevak advocates a primary health care approach that promotes a pattern of healthcare delivery in which community residents and health professionals are partners in achieving the common goal of improved health. Ms. Stevak received her Masters of Education from the University of Illinois at Chicago and her Masters of Arts in Latin American Studies from the University of Texas at Austin. She has taught cultural studies in Europe, Latin America and the United States and currently consults to medical education programs and non-profit organizations. Ms. Stevak speaks Spanish and German and enjoys exploring the world and learning the language, history, and culture of others.
PrimeCare Faculty
	Blanca Baldoceda, MD Dr. Baldoceda's passion for working with the underserved and improving the health of populations developed during her undergraduate years at Vanderbilt University. During a year of service work with AmeriCorps after college, she worked on environmental justice and lead poisoning prevention in Chicago's Little Village community. Her mentors during that year were family physicians who were caring for their patients and community. Dr. Baldoceda went to medical school at the University of Illinois at Chicago, committed to becoming a primary care physician. Her family medicine training was done at the Cook County Family Practice Residency & the California Hospital Medical Center/USC Family Medicine Residency. After residency, she returned home to Chicago to work at a Federally Qualified Health Center (FQHC) serving a predominantly Latino population. Three years into her professional career, Dr. Baldoceda decided to pursue a degree in public health at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health with a focus on global health and community health. After getting her MPH, she returned to her FQHC and helped develop a global health program that involved both residents and attending physicians. She also became the director of the community medicine and leadership fellowship. One of the things Dr. Baldoceda loves the most about family medicine is the opportunity to be able to pursue many different interests. She has had the opportunity to be part of the first freestanding birth center in Illinois, work in a value-based care model at Iora Health and teach residents at the MacNeal Family Practice Residency. Dr. Baldoceda has always enjoyed teaching and she is excited to merge her passions for underserved care and resident learning at PrimeCare as the academic health center's medical director. Outside of work, Dr. Baldoceda spends her free time with her daughter and husband. They are big fans of the Brookfield Zoo, local parks and ice cream.
	Jim Christoforidis, MD Raised in the Midwest but with a passion for international travel, Dr. Christoforidis attended medical school at Northeastern Ohio Universities' College of Medicine before moving to Chicago to continue his training. As a resident at Rush-Presbyterian St. Luke's Medical Center, he spent a month in Zimbabwe working in a rural hospital. He is board-certified in Family Medicine, speaks Spanish and Greek in addition to English and has a strong interest in cross-cultural medicine. In addition to a busy clinical practice in one of the community health center's satellite clinics, Dr. Christoforidis supervises residents in both in- and outpatient settings.
	James Lang, MD Since Dr. Lang finished his residency training in 1990, he has been in clinical practice. During that time, he also served as a faculty preceptor to Presence Saint Elizabeth residents. In 1998, when founder and previous program director Martin Gonzalez, MD retired, Dr. Lang served briefly as interim Program Director of the Presence Saint Elizabeth residency. He is a graduate of the University of Illinois College of Medicine, and completed his residency training at Cook County Hospital. Raised primarily in West Africa, Dr. Lang has special interests in cross-cultural medicine, health care in underserved communities, geriatric medicine, end-of-life care, and spirituality in medicine. In 2005, he was honored with a Special Recognition Award for his dedication and service by the Illinois Academy of Family Physicians. A frequent recipient of the residents' Teacher of the Year Award, Dr. Lang lives with his wife and five children in Chicago's Humboldt Park neighborhood.
	Christina Marmol, MD Dr. Marmol is a family physician at PrimeCare Fullerton. Prior to settling in the Midwest, she completed her medical school training at Vanderbilt University in Tennessee and her family medicine residency at Boston Medical Center. It was during residency that she curated her passions for caring for and advocating for the urban underserved. In addition to her clinical practice at Fullerton, she works with the residents in inpatient, outpatient and OB settings. Her interests include women’s health, maternal/child medicine and resident education.
	Elias Murciano, MD Dr. Murciano has a primarily clinical appointment in the program. He attended medical school in Venezuela, did research at the University of Illinois at Chicago, and then completed his residency at the Saint Elizabeth program in June of 2002. Board-certified in Family Medicine, Dr. Murciano is the Medical Director of PrimeCare Fullerton and supervises residents at both the West Town site as well as on the inpatient Medicine and Maternal-Child teaching services. He enjoys outdoor activities and lives in the Ravenswood neighborhood with his wife and son.
	Claudia Sanchez, MD
	Abigail Smith, MD Dr. Smith completed medical school at the University of Iowa Carver College of Medicine, where her rotations with family physicians in rural small towns introduced her to the beauty of full-spectrum community medicine. Her love of culture and diversity brought her to Chicago where she completed her family medicine residency at AMITA Saints Mary & Elizabeth. With an interest in global health and underserved medicine, Dr. Smith completed rotations in Guatemala and Rwanda during her medical training. She now enjoys practicing full-spectrum family medicine at PrimeCare Northwest Health Center while teaching residents in the outpatient and inpatient setting.
	Stephen Stabile, MD Dr. Stephen Stabile is a family physician, practicing at PrimeCare Wicker Park. Dr. Stabile graduated from Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, Texas and completed his family medicine residency at Cook County Hospital. His clinical interests include caring for underserved/immigrant patients, patients with behavioral health problems and global health.