After just two years, Lee Health’s family practice residency program has been approved for expansion and has received continued accreditation with commendation from the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME) for the next 10 years—without a single citation for improvement.
“This is a remarkable achievement, especially for a new program,” says Gary Goforth, M.D., Founding Program Director of The Florida State University College of Medicine Family Medicine Residency Program at Lee Health. “I have worked with four residency programs during the past 32 years, and each of those programs has received continued accreditation status with the maximum time interval. However I have never received a notification letter with zero citations!” Dr. Goforth explains.
The local program is based at Lee Memorial Hospital with the Florida State University College of Medicine as its institutional sponsor. This residency program was developed to abate the shortage of primary care physicians anticipated nationally, an issue that is compounded locally by a rapid population growth in Southwest Florida. Medical school graduates are required to complete residency training in their chosen specialty in order to become independently practicing physicians. Most physicians set up practice near where they complete this training, making the ideal candidate local students who also plan to practice in the community.
