About

Sutter Santa Rosa Family Medicine Residency Program offers a 13-month, 2 fellow Family Medicine Addiction Medicine Fellowship.  During this time eligible primary care physicians develop expertise in the de-stigmatized treatment of those experiencing substance use disorders and frequent co-occuring conditions.  This junior faculty position emphasizes the fellow’s role as both learner and teacher, providing direct patient care as well as consultation and supervisory services.

Training takes place in both inpatient and outpatient settings across Sonoma's County's safety-net systems. Particular focus is devoted to the care of patients experiencing homelessness with embedded continuity clinics and street medicine work with this demographic.  Fellows spend substantial time caring for patients in the acute hospital setting, both attending on the inpatient adult medicine service and providing addiction medicine consultation for patients in the emergency department and inpatient units. Fellows will leave with a nuanced understanding of the individual and societal risks fueling addiction and empowered with tools to lead system change in underserved settings.

Purpose

In recognition of the escalating epidemic of substance use disorders and their impact on our community wellness, and in recognition of the disproportionate burden on our most underserved communities, and in light of the inadequate specialty resources to address the need of this population, we developed an Addiction Medicine fellowship with goals including:

• To provide an educational environment to develop specialty expertise in community-based addiction medicine and in preparation for Addiction Medicine Board Certification.
• To foster a community of Addiction Medicine providers in Sonoma County with the goal to improve services for those with substance use disorders.
• To contribute to the advancement of the field through research and writing of the fellow and faculty and to scale advancements through presentation and teaching.
• To increase accessibility of evidenced-based treatment for substance use disorders in outpatient clinics, emergency rooms and hospitals in our community.
• To attract and retain a primary care workforce with the knowledge, skills and interest in treating patients with complex substance use disorders in our community.