Yvette Walker
With KVCR News, I'm Yvette Walker. This is IE Latino Voices, where we invite representatives from Latino led and Latino serving organizations to share their stories and their impact in our region. Joining me today is Dr Nandini Gowda, Internal Medicine Program Director for San Antonio Regional Hospital. Thank you so much for being with us today, Dr Gowda.
Dr. Nandini Gowda
Thank you, Yvette, for inviting me.
Yvette Walker
So this is a very exciting time for your program and San Antonio Regional Hospital. Please tell us why.
Dr. Nandini Gowda
Currently, we just interviewed some candidates. We got approved for a 30 resident panel, that is young trainees who finished medical school are considered residents, so which means, first year I get 10, second year I get 10 more, and then third year is 10. But we will take anybody from the local area. We do give preference to if people want to be in the Inland Empire, but we are open to taking even international medical graduates, quite a lot of interviewing, which I'm thankful for. I t's like, you know, for a residency I always say it requires a village to train them, because it's not just me. We're doing this for the Inland Empire. That's one of our goals that we are pledging on.
Yvette Walker
The very exciting part of this residency program is the fact that it's the first ever residency program implemented at San Antonio Regional Hospital in its 118-year history. Dr Gowda, please share why it's important that we do have this residency program that San Antonio Regional Hospital develop it, implement it, and create this new workforce of internal medicine physicians.
Dr. Nandini Gowda
I think every hospital needs to have residency programs going forward, because we are having a physician shortage in the area, so we all need to become involved in education in some sort of way. It's a lot of culture change as well. I have to talk to multiple people already, and the CEO - everybody's been speaking to them about what's going to happen. Because having residents their mindset has to change, because patient safety is going to be the key and satisfaction.
Yvette Walker
When you talk about culture, please share what that culture shift you anticipate is going to occur, or you would like to see occur with this new residency program.
Dr. Nandini Gowda
Of course, number one, they have to accept my residents, the young trainees coming in, and be open to them. The culture is right now it's going to be the nurse will tell the physician, and the physician put the orders. But now, for example, I tell the faculty, okay, now you guys have to stand back a little bit and educate your nurses as well that they have to call the resident first. The resident takes call, then the resident contacts the physician. Start thinking along that line, not immediately called the physician. Because I need my trainees to get the experience with anything so that we can prevent anything from happening. That's how they learn how to manage patients when they go out on their own after three years.
Yvette Walker
Talk about the work that has gone into developing this residency program from the ground up. What did the workload look like to create this residency program?
Dr. Nandini Gowda
Opti-West is a consortium of all the osteopathic schools. They were able to bring in people, and then there's a lot of paperwork and coaching that has to take place, because when people have no clue what is a residency, it takes almost a year minimum before all the paperwork is done. Everything is like step by step. Almost two years. I would say you take by the time you get your first residents in. They're joining us in end of June. That's when we are going to have orientation. Then going forward, they're going to start in July.
Yvette Walker
Please share what the residents can expect through this residency program at San Antonio Regional Hospital and how to apply, how to be a part of this new cohort of internal medicine physicians in the making.
Dr. Nandini Gowda
Any school can apply, any medical school. Even though it was organized by a DO school, which is osteopathic, we are still open to having MD candidates. So we have both MD schools and osteopathic medical schools can apply. For our residents, the application is simple. Like everybody else, they'll be applying for multiple programs. Ours is one of them. It's a computer system where they have to select us and we have to select them, so it's similar to what they do when they go from high school to college, but this is a higher level.
Yvette Walker
Well Dr Gowda, thank you so much for sharing your time, your expertise, and for dedicating yourself to developing the next generation of internal medicine physicians.
Dr. Nandini Gowda
Thank you for having me. This is a pleasure.
Yvette Walker
Join us again next week for IE Latino Voices. You can find this story and others on our website at kvcrnews.org/IELatinoVoices. IE Latino Voices is produced by KVCR Public Media and is funded by generous support from the San Antonio Regional Hospital. Here for life. For KVCR News, I'm Yvette Walker.
