VCU news

By Anne Dreyfuss
C. Kenneth and Dianne Wright Center for Clinical and Translational Research

Virginia Commonwealth University’s Fairfax Family Medicine Residency Program has been named one of the top 10 residency programs in the South by Doximity, a social network exclusively for physicians.

More than 3,600 residency training programs were evaluated in the national and regional assessment that spanned 20 specialties and was based on more than 50,000 peer nominations from board-certified U.S. physicians.  

The public ranking of medical training programs will be used by medical school graduates as a tool to help them choose a residency program.

“The VCU-Fairfax Family Medicine Residency has been an educational and practice innovator since its inception in 1972,” said Anton Kuzel, M.D., chair and professor in the Department of Family Medicine and Population Health, VCU School of Medicine.

Based at Inova Fairfax Hospital, the VCU-Fairfax Family Medicine Residency Program is nationally recognized for its innovative, longitudinal curriculum and on-site resources in behavioral medicine and clinical research.

“This is a wonderful recognition for this outstanding training program and its faculty,” said Jerome Strauss, M.D., Ph.D., dean of the VCU School of Medicine. “It has been a major pipeline for the much-needed primary care workforce.”

With more than half of the country’s active physicians enrolled as members, Doximity is the largest secure medical network in the country. Often described as a LinkedIn for doctors, it connects physicians to make them more productive. The survey results are used in Doximity’s free interactive tool called Residency Navigator, which is designed to help third- and fourth-year medical students choose the right residency program to kickstart their careers.

“The programs recognized on this list should be proud to be so highly regarded among physicians across the country,” said Alex Blau, M.D., medical director at Doximity. “The choice of a specialty training program for any medical student is a momentous and highly personal decision. The goal of our survey is to support them in their process by highlighting how programs are perceived by physician peers and future employers.”