(LtoR) Alim Karim, MD, Ashley Clark, MD, Greg Stepp, MD, Gary Goforth, MD, Tyler Hendricks, MD, Clint Walls, MD (not pictured Shane Drahos, MD—already in California for Sleep Medicine Fellowship)
Lee Health recently celebrated the graduation of the Cass of 2018 of The Florida State University College of Medicine Family Medicine Residency Program. The residency program is based at Lee Memorial Hospital and was created to combat an expected national shortage of primary care physicians—an issue that is compounded locally by a rapidly growing aging population.
“Southwest Florida is one of the fastest growing regions in the state, and statistically, about 50-75 percent of residents practice medicine in the same area in which they trained,” explains Gary Goforth, M.D., Founding Program Director of the residency program at Lee Health. “We are proud to report that four of the eight graduates from the class of 2018 are staying in the Fort Myers area to practice medicine.”
This year’s graduates include:
•Dr. Ashley Clark, who plans to practice in Fort Myers
•Dr. Shane Drahos, who will complete a one-year sleep medicine fellowship at Stanford and then return to Lee County to practice
•Dr. Tyler Hendricks, who plans to stay in the Central Florida area
•Dr. Alim Karim, who accepted a position to continue working with Lee Health
•Dr. Gregory Stepp, who will return to his hometown and practice in the Florida panhandle
•Dr. Clinton Walls, who will practice as a hospitalist in Sarasota
•Dr. Lee Coghill, Global Health Fellow, who will join the faculty here at the FSU COM Family Medicine Residency Program at Lee Health
•Dr. Michael Heiland, Global Health Fellow, who will join the faculty at Halifax Family Medicine Residency in Daytona Beach
The Florida State University College of Medicine Family Medicine Residency Program at Lee Health takes residents through 36 months of training, which is divided into four-week blocks. These rotations are completed at Lee Memorial Hospital, HealthPark Medical Center and Golisano Children’s Hospital of Southwest Florida. The program began with its inaugural class in July 2014.
In December 2016, the residency program was approved for expansion from 18 residents to 24, and received Continued Accreditation from the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME) for the next 10 years.
