Family Medicine Residency

We are an academic department of family medicine, committed to improving the health of the communities we serve through direct patient care, advocacy, medical education and scholarly inquiry.

Program overview

• People
  • Ask anyone in the program and that will be their first reply.
  • Physician, pharmacy and behavioral health faculty with a multitude of clinical interests
  • Family Medicine is one of the oldest training programs at MaineHealth Maine Medical Center (MHMMC)
  • We serve a diverse community—there are over 60 languages spoken in Portland Public Schools!
• Quality of Life
  • Portland, Maine is Forbes Magazine’s ‘Most Livable City’ and Bon Appetit Magazine’s ‘America’s Foodiest Small Town.’ Our beaches and mountains, amazing local food, craft beers, and arts scene are other reasons we love it here.
  • 2 week block rotations limit intensive inpatient time
  • Limited 24 hour call (1 per year as a PGY2 and PGY3)
• Focus on education
  • Weekly didactics: From 1-5pm on Wednesday afternoons, residents have protected teaching time to attend educational sessions on a variety of topics. This includes protected time for resident support groups, journal clubs, and weekly resident business meetings.
  • Morning Report: Most mornings on our inpatient family medicine service, a resident presents an admission to discuss evaluation, management, and clinical reasoning.
  • Afternoon Report: Daily ambulatory teaching before afternoon clinic
  • Simulation Center: Once monthly, all residents attend a 4-hour session at the Hannaford Center for Safety, Innovation, and Simulation. Sessions include simulations of various inpatient and outpatient scenarios and procedural skills training.
  • Weekly radiology rounds on inpatient service
  • High-quality postgraduate opportunities at MHMMC: sports medicine, integrative medicine, addiction medicine, preventative medicine, geriatrics, palliative medicine and a 4th year Chief Resident position.
  • 100% Family Medicine Board pass rate for graduates
• Superior outpatient training
  • Two clinics built around resident education. Both Family Medicine Centers are NCQA Level 3 Patient Centered Medical Homes.
  • Imbedded behavioral health specialists, chronic care management teams and outpatient pharmacists
  • Residents rotate through special clinics with dedicated staff for New Mainers, gender-affirming care, treatment of substance use disorders, procedures, integrative medicine, sports medicine and dermatology in addition to integration in regular clinic sessions
• Excellent inpatient training
  • MHMMC is a tertiary care center but also serves as a community hospital, making the case mix of patients ideal for resident education.
  • Family Medicine inpatient service cares for adults, newborns, children, and obstetric patients, all supervised by family physicians
  • Deliver obstetric patients under the supervision of our family medicine doctors
  • Daily interdisciplinary care rounds including physicians, nurses, pharmacists, social workers, nutritionists, physical and occupational therapist
  • All inpatient training is at MHMMC, a nationally ranked hospital and the top hospital in Maine
• Community-based training though MaineHealth Preble Street Learning Collaborative Portland:
  • Two weeks each year at MaineHealth Preble Street Learning Collaborative Portland
  • Exposure to walk-in medical care, outreach care and case management for those experiencing homelessness

Message from the program director

We aim to provide you with all the tools you need to be an incredible family physician in a supportive environment. MaineHealth Maine Medical Center’s role as both an academic medical center and a community hospital makes us exceptionally positioned to offer the right balance of education that the future family physician needs. 

We also think it’s important to live in a place you enjoy and we’re lucky that Portland, Maine is hard to beat! Our program was established long ago in 1973 and has numerous graduates who have gone on to practice in a wide variety of settings – outpatient practice, academics, direct primary care, integrative medicine, sports medicine, hospitalist medicine, addiction medicine, maternal-child health, preventive medicine, family planning, and more! 

As the leader of this program, I continue to advocate for our residents’ education and well-being within the ever-changing landscape of medicine. Come join us to become the family physician that every patient deserves!

Carly McAteer, MD
Director, Family Medicine Residency Program