Clerkships/Fellowships

Integrative Medicine Fellowship

Mission

Aligning with the mission of Lawrence Family Medicine Residency, the mission of the GLFHC-Integrative Medicine Fellowship is to create and nurture a learning environment where family physicians are inspired to develop expertise in integrative family medicine and to dedicate themselves to the care of individuals, families and communities, especially those who are underserved.

History

GLFHC’s Integrative Medicine Fellowship, recently known as the HIP (Holistic, Integrative and Pluralistic) fellowship, was founded in 2005 and has had 17 graduates.

Setting

The Integrative Medicine Fellowship is housed at the South Site of GLFHC. GLFHC is a federally qualified health center (FQHC) founded in 1994 to care for the people of Lawrence, MA, a largely Spanish speaking, urban city north of Boston with a rich cultural history that is known as the “City of Immigrants.” GLFHC is dedicated to social justice and community health and is the home of Lawrence Family Medicine Residency (LFMR), a nationally recognized family medicine residency.

Culture Code

  • We become the doctors our patients and communities need.
  • We inspire, nourish and support each other.
  • We dream big.
  • We partner with our community.
  • We practice evidence-based medicine.
  • We collaborate openly and recognize our own limits.
  • We never stop learning.
  • We challenge systems of injustice.

Structure

  • Self-care: We recognize that physician burnout is a public health crisis with multiple causes and that self-care may help mitigate its effects. We hope to (re)ignite a physician’s passion and joy for medicine by providing time for self-care and a sense of community.
  • Skills: Fellows are given time and funds to learn a skill of their choice. They are able to apply these skills in integrative medicine consult clinic. Prior fellows have learned acupuncture, hypnosis, functional medicine, osteopathic manipulative medicine and herbal medicine.
  • Science: Fellows learn evidence based integrative medicine including nutrition and botanicals in an organ-system and case-based curriculum taught with adult learning methods. Currently, fellows participate in weekly didactics including multi-disciplinary integrative case review with an integrative learning community and will cover the material required for ABOIM boards.
  • Social Justice: We acknowledge that whole person care requires embracing cultural humility through honoring, listening to and learning from cultural and individual traditions, stories and narratives.  Fellows learn how to address social determinants of health as a part of integrative primary care and integrative consult clinic. They will use innovative and compassionate approaches in caring for patients with history of trauma, addiction and chronic pain.

One year fellowship in integrative medicine includes:

  • A curriculum covering the basic foundations of integrative medicine to prepare fellows for the integrative medicine board exam (ABOIM).
  • An opportunity to learn a skill of their choice and apply it in primary care and integrative consult clinic.
  • Weekly integrative consult clinic.
  • Weekly fellowship time to review cases, literature and curriculum.
  • Potential opportunities to work with group medical visits, a mobile health unit that provides primary care, Hepatitis C and HIV treatment to the homeless, scholarly work and teaching.

Qualifications

Will have completed family medicine residency by September 2021 and will need a Massachusetts medical license before beginning the fellowship. A working knowledge of medical Spanish isn’t required but is certainly helpful.

How to Apply

  1. Application deadline is October 15. Qualified applicants will be invited for interviews via Zoom.
  2. Email Suhani Bora, MD, at suhani.bora@glfhc.org with:
  • Your updated CV
  • A personal statement that includes:
    • Your interest in integrative medicine
    • Your interest in underserved communities
    • How you envision your career in 5 years

Click here for the application (in Word format)

LFMR and GLFHC is happy to offer a Family Medicine Advanced Internship to 4th Year students interested in Family Medicine, particularly Family Medicine in underserved communities.

GLFHC and LFMR serve a predominantly Latino, immigrant population about 30 miles Northwest of Boston. Our mission is dedicated to delivering high quality medical care to the residents of the Merrimack Valley and to training clinicians for life-long work in underserved communities, both locally and globally. Our patient population is medically and socially complex, providing excellent opportunities to further develop core knowledge and patient care skills. Students will also better understand the barriers to health encountered in underserved communities and how to utilize those core clinical skills, along with patient and community assets, to overcome these barriers.

For the Acting Internship, students will participate in a variety of activities, typically including two weeks on the adult inpatient medicine teaching service, a week of inpatient obstetrics, and a week of outpatient clinic. Inpatient rotations are done with LFMR residents and faculty at Lawrence General Hospital, which is just up the hill from our main office. The student will serve as an acting intern on the service and will be responsible for evaluating patients for admission, writing H and P’s and daily progress notes, and presenting patients on rounds, with the support of a senior resident and attending. The student will also have the opportunity to interact with our ancillary services, nursing staff, and subspecialty consultation staff as needed to assist in the care of the patients. The outpatient week will consist primarily of time spent at our main office/residency site, working with Family Medicine attendings and residents in the care of continuity patients. Students will also have afternoon clinic sessions interspersed with the inpatient components of the rotation, approximating the schedule of a Family Medicine intern.

Didactic sessions include core teaching curricula on each service, resident-led outpatient topic reviews, and daily inpatient noon conferences which are case-based and open to the entire residency community. Students may also participate in other educational sessions as they arise.

Acceptance to the AI is through a competitive application process, which is open to students from LCME or COCA-accredited medical schools, or in circumstances where LFMR has a preexisting exchange program with the student’s home institution. Please click on the link for further information and application.

Applications are accepted beginning January 1st for the following academic year and decisions are generally made by March 31st.

For further inquiries, contact:
Lawrence Family Medicine Residency
Email: 4YearResidency@GLFHC.org

Click here for the application (in Word format)